tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56015106307679292012024-03-16T01:10:21.291+00:00Martin Powell-Davies - teacher, trade unionist and socialistSharing views, information and resources for school staff, trade unionists and education campaigners
Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.comBlogger1225125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-86191752873086900252024-03-01T11:58:00.002+00:002024-03-01T12:01:59.666+00:00Special Relativity - a short history from Galileo to Einstein<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Once again, these are notes I've written to improve my own scientific understanding - and to also to help put the debates Lenin was analysing around 1909 in context. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I'm sure some physicists might find some phrases they would write differently - but I hope they are of use in helping others develop their understanding too:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A pdf version can be downloaded from <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xQDLKh-0j3Fzh3Y_M1pPjvw-HpsJnnqY/view?usp=drive_link" target="_blank">here</a></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuthOSWQzl0l9fkc79nrIE57okJ_QVYhoEQxGh1XcT9YNkq0lIcnWOm9ICZtPx-Iupu3PGKUfyek5Ch5oFISZcuOLFqd_5cx-jlBOPrKzlns_T_o7x4IR1nWI_Fou9jURrhMvcwGHVq7uxMgV6NFJKvfBZW4Xf5xdnV2lUFdyRPrj6t5VO4ul7GhJWffxe/s378/main-qimg-7e0f5e18b0d6c298f77f6c110372d4d4.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="378" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuthOSWQzl0l9fkc79nrIE57okJ_QVYhoEQxGh1XcT9YNkq0lIcnWOm9ICZtPx-Iupu3PGKUfyek5Ch5oFISZcuOLFqd_5cx-jlBOPrKzlns_T_o7x4IR1nWI_Fou9jURrhMvcwGHVq7uxMgV6NFJKvfBZW4Xf5xdnV2lUFdyRPrj6t5VO4ul7GhJWffxe/w400-h400/main-qimg-7e0f5e18b0d6c298f77f6c110372d4d4.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Relativity on a train - read on below ...</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-32605204754505538522024-02-16T13:12:00.008+00:002024-02-16T14:37:57.545+00:00Quantum Physics - a scientific and philosophical overview<p></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">My 2023 <a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2023/06/lenin-rovelli-materialism-and-empirio.html" target="_blank">blog post on Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism</a> - and Rovelli's critique of it in 'Helgoland' - has gained a lot more interest and feedback than I was expecting. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There is clearly a thirst for discussion on scientific and philosophical issues amongst active socialists and Marxists, even if their time for those discussions is inevitably severely limited by the immediate pressures of activity in the immediate struggle. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, to engage in an informed manner in scientific and philosophical debates over the questions arising from modern 'quantum mechanical' interpretations of the true nature of reality, it's necessary to have at least a limited understanding of the mathematical methods and experimental evidence that underlie quantum theory.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To aid my own understanding, and hopefully to help others to do the same, I have produced the notes below - attached as images so as to not lose the mathematical notation. They are my attempt to summarise the foundations of quantum mechanics and some of the philosophical and scientific debates that have arisen during its development. The whole document can be <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gRzq5EBLRB_2A1QC633jdfjQ_KnoamVY/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">downloaded as a pdf here</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I don't expect that these notes are totally free from error, and appreciate that some with more detailed knowledge may feel that they perhaps oversimplify issues in places, but I hope that they are sufficiently accurate to assist others in developing their understanding too.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNRrCr6xFBECTzUUGeIQW67uO6rAAnNmHOLx7XQmfHDWILbjbZKQNvRNNpfyCVZb7YDb9zQ8YAhcvuZY73qgoXR5BWeLY5SM3sfnXwJBOka4799r8x2JfrLE3SexLYuVOZCJBGLzHjVfJQU-TJxRbO13grzEufbffiPYx6eRTiGkcZ_vGjNDYlh9CnUV7I/s2339/Quantum%20Physics%20-%20an%20overview_Page_01.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-63961929568433974772024-01-25T20:14:00.005+00:002024-02-16T12:52:13.007+00:00Why socialists call for nationalising the 'commanding heights' of the economy<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Nationalisation</b>, the taking of major industries, utilities and banks and out of the hands of private profiteers and into public ownership, to be run under democratic workers’ control and management, has always been a cornerstone of socialist ideas. </span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg327BM0ncTRUCLAf6HLBunL8bYFVnrONDFWODmY-FxfFOWWOnjsnucFwQsB-iB3O7A6Q5bl9jjV1jVqH8Nk94tfxWfM-Hu26lmkvmP0rOroY31VRUF2ju6Y6X9rg7OdQ-nIsedEigjcrMq17wrxL81quMm6x7diLcinDzrUfJ4I5Jq8KUZZeqprAmOAgo_/s1336/Nationalisation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="1336" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg327BM0ncTRUCLAf6HLBunL8bYFVnrONDFWODmY-FxfFOWWOnjsnucFwQsB-iB3O7A6Q5bl9jjV1jVqH8Nk94tfxWfM-Hu26lmkvmP0rOroY31VRUF2ju6Y6X9rg7OdQ-nIsedEigjcrMq17wrxL81quMm6x7diLcinDzrUfJ4I5Jq8KUZZeqprAmOAgo_/w400-h246/Nationalisation.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/120706/07-02-2024/why-socialists-call-for-nationalisation/" target="_blank">This article also appeared - with improved editing(!) in the Socialist No.1261</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Marx and Engels explained in the Communist Manifesto how, to bring an end to capitalist crisis, private ownership of industry and commerce needed to be replaced by state ownership. In Britain, reflecting the influence of Marxism on the pioneers of the labour movement, the demand for public ownership was widely supported as the way to build a better, socialist, society. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mMsg0goubPQF7C-PDz53aGg3HNjH-o5eXdJKf3-C1nruUMbvPYQwQehiA3EBeC2P2a0CJxFQFOr80t2RCkN0_-KW-g9vh66keKtcESXv3vfwgG8wVQsmr6UjRx4kG6NyIJHRcSot9B8fbrT5MvXcYVyVQ1zMrf2BCEjzWwpyZq-A6X6FQw-DReojvXg4/s4080/PXL_20240121_200127508.PORTRAIT.ORIGINAL.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="3072" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mMsg0goubPQF7C-PDz53aGg3HNjH-o5eXdJKf3-C1nruUMbvPYQwQehiA3EBeC2P2a0CJxFQFOr80t2RCkN0_-KW-g9vh66keKtcESXv3vfwgG8wVQsmr6UjRx4kG6NyIJHRcSot9B8fbrT5MvXcYVyVQ1zMrf2BCEjzWwpyZq-A6X6FQw-DReojvXg4/w301-h400/PXL_20240121_200127508.PORTRAIT.ORIGINAL.jpg" width="301" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A 1911 book containing the ILP's "ABC of Socialism"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For example, the Independent Labour Party adopted an “ABC of Socialism” which explained that "<i>The fight against private ownership of land and capital, the fight for Socialism, for the nation's control of its own resources, is the last fight in the age-long struggle of humanity for freedom ... That is Socialism: The nationalization of the land and of the means of producing and distributing wealth; and the organisation of industry as a civic service under public ownership and control for the benefit of all, instead of, as now, under private ownership and control for private profit</i>".</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In 1918, the Labour Party adopted the famous ‘Clause 4’ of its constitution. It called for “t<i>he common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service</i>”. That ‘socialist clause’ remained in place right up until 1995, when Tony Blair finally managed to persuade a Special Conference to ditch any reference to common ownership, as part of his drive to turn ‘New Labour’ into a fully pro-capitalist party.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Whereas the original adoption of Clause 4 had been taken under the influence of the Russian Revolution successfully abolishing capitalism in 1917, its removal came in the wake of the collapse of the nationalised, planned economies of the Soviet Union and other Stalinist states. Their demise dealt a powerful blow to the idea that nationalisation could provide an answer to poverty and exploitation. Instead, a triumphant capitalist class asserted even more vociferously that private ownership and the ‘free market’ was the only way to run an economy. That capitalist ideology took a firm grip of the leadership of former workers’ parties, like Blair, across the globe. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Privatisation</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Many capitalist governments had already embarked on mass privatisation of previously nationalised industries, with Margaret Thatcher leading the way in Britain. But what has been the outcome? Water privatisation has seen bills rocket by 40% above inflation, while firms dump raw sewage in our rivers and lakes, yet pay out billions of pounds in dividends to shareholders. Our fragmented, privatised railways have similarly seen fares soar but services decline. The big energy firms are being subsidised to maintain their profits while millions struggle to heat their homes. Instead of being run to provide a universal service, the postal regulator Ofcom is proposing that privatised Royal Mail might only deliver letters for three days a week in future.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the main capitalist parties are still wedded to privatisation. Outrageously, it’s now being pushed as the supposed solution to the critical state of the NHS. Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting is talking about a Starmer Government “<i>holding the door wide open</i>” to the private sector. But workers – and the middle-class too – know from bitter experience that NHS privatisation will, once again, just see the private profiteers put ‘greed before need’. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, while Labour politicians may have bought into the idea of privatisation, a clear majority of Britons polled by YouGov in 2022 agreed that public transport, water, energy, social care, and the NHS should all be run in the public sector. That was even the most popular opinion expressed by Conservative voters. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, in contrast to the claims of Starmer and his pro-capitalist crew, the manifesto pledges in the Corbyn-led Labour 2019 manifesto for public ownership of rail, mail, water, telecoms and power, and to reverse privatisation in the NHS, were popular demands with most voters. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Corbyn’s critics warned that the cost of compensating shareholders made renationalisation unviable. The bosses’ CBI put on the frighteners by calculating the cost of buying back rail, mail, water and energy as being almost £200bn! But these fat cats have already made a killing at our expense, why should we pay them a penny more? The Socialist Party says that compensation should only be paid where there is a proven need, for example to safeguard workers’ pension investments or small shareholders. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But Corbyn’s nationalisation demands were actually still quite timid compared to those raised by the left-wing of the Labour Party, including by Militant, the forerunners of the Socialist Party, under previous Labour Governments. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>1945 and 1974 Labour Governments</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In 1945, pushed forward by a working-class demanding real change at the end of World War Two, Labour was elected with a landslide majority, promising to nationalise the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. As well as launching the NHS and a massive council-house building program, a fifth of British industry was nationalised, including gas, coal, electricity and steel, as well as the Bank of England. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But, in reality, this was not socialism but the state acting as a prop to capitalism. The wealthy former owners of these nationalised firms were generously paid-off. They were happy to be given the cash to switch to profiteering from the real “commanding heights” that remained in capitalist hands - in the manufacturing and financial sectors, as well as exploiting cheap-labour globally.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The firms brought into state ownership were largely unprofitable essential basic industries that capitalism was happy to see the state take responsibility for. They continued to be run like private companies, without the working-class having any genuine control or management. As the ongoing Post Office Scandal has shown, a nationalised firm that still follows capitalist business methods will operate just like any other cut-throat private company.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the post-war boom couldn’t remove that stubborn idea from workers’ minds that putting ‘people before profit’ required taking firms out of the hands of the profiteers. In response to the 1974 Labour Government caving into the pressure of big business, the ‘Tribune’ Group of Labour MPs proposed an “Alternative Economic Strategy”. A key element, still echoed by what remains of the Labour Left today, was a plan for selective nationalisation of perhaps 25 manufacturing firms, and to gradually extend state ownership over different sectors of the economy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Tribune argued that this core of state-run nationalised firms would act as competitive encouragement to force private capitalists to invest, thereby creating jobs and boosting economic growth. But ‘Militant’ correctly warned that the capitalists would only invest if they knew they could sell their products into profitable markets. More fundamentally, ‘Militant’ warned that if the capitalists concluded that a left-led government was serious about seizing its profitable assets, they would use their majority control over the rest of the economy, including the banking and finance sectors, to sabotage it and bring it down. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Chile and France</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That sabotage had already been played out in the most brutal way in Chile where the Allende government had sought to compromise with capitalism, including over the speed and extent of nationalisation. In contrast, the most militant workers occupied factories, especially where employers were sabotaging production, and demanded workers’ control of the whole economy. Allende’s attempts to placate capitalist reaction were answered by the 1973 military coup.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In 1981, the Parti Socialiste in France was elected to power on a left programme promising radical reforms and partial nationalisation. But French and global capitalism went on the attack and within a few months the reforms went into reverse. The Parti Socialiste eventually became so infamous for its austerity policies that its support collapsed to just a few per cent.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Socialists need to learn the lesson that any attempt to gradually nationalise our way to socialism will be blocked by capitalist reaction. Instead, a socialist government would need to bring under public ownership all the major monopolies and banks that dominate the economy. That would be about 150 companies in Britain. That wouldn’t be the only step needed to stop capitalism trying to crush such a transformation, a mass mobilisation of workers in defence of its government would certainly be needed too, but it would strike a serious blow against any attempted economic sabotage.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Neither should nationalised companies just be left in the hands of their previous managers. They must be run under democratic workers’ control and management. That means much more than just having some seats on the board for workers to be consulted over how the company is run. It means that workers should have real control over the day-to-day running of their workplace, over working conditions and hours, over production methods and initiatives. These steps, alone, would lift the dead-hand of top-down management and enable the insight and creativity of workers on the ‘shopfloor’ to both reduce workload and improve productivity.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGUYPwzOyebrhxAkCFXSsqFgXkk2OwjpxtiC5E99iOTAfonWZ_kOoWYU9yd8RMtvBA1xDfVg-TOSIds8kZ4oDeRqqzSxDNUoanUVmFHh_GqFSwTAHDjEndq552nboincMfpyX_-xD8lOaBAapkMcIOVRnN8PEMEixXaa0FqgEC9pxMcHpvylKRdA9g0TC/s962/share_5915524183709603944.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="864" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGUYPwzOyebrhxAkCFXSsqFgXkk2OwjpxtiC5E99iOTAfonWZ_kOoWYU9yd8RMtvBA1xDfVg-TOSIds8kZ4oDeRqqzSxDNUoanUVmFHh_GqFSwTAHDjEndq552nboincMfpyX_-xD8lOaBAapkMcIOVRnN8PEMEixXaa0FqgEC9pxMcHpvylKRdA9g0TC/s320/share_5915524183709603944.png" width="287" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Such democratic measures should be enacted in any individual firm that is nationalised. For example, in Port Talbot right now, nationalisation of Tata under democratic workers’ control and management is the only way to save jobs, stop the devastation of the local economy, and implement a transition to green steel production. Only nationalisation can ensure that economic and environmental needs are put first. A global capitalist corporation like Tata is only ever going to prioritise what is necessary to maximise its profits.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But democratically-run nationalisation of the 150 or so ‘commanding heights’ of the economy allows so much more than just protecting individual industries. It is the key to implementing full democratic planning of a socialist plan of production for the whole economy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A socialist plan of production</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A socialist plan would put an end to the anarchy of capitalist economics, dominated by the need to generate short-term profit and, increasingly, by financial gambling rather than investment in useful production. It could put an end to the waste of unemployment, identical competing brands, inbuilt obsolescence, arms spending, and the luxuries of the super-rich. It could harness all the best elements of existing commercial planning for the benefit of society as a whole, instead of being used to work out what adverts to put on your phone or how best to avoid paying tax.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Workers’ control and management in the workplace would be part of a wider system of workers’ democracy, agreeing local, regional, national - and international - plans and priorities. Such a system would allow mass participation in genuine democracy, rather than just the chance to put the occasional cross on a ballot paper. ‘What transport and energy policies, nationally and globally, should be followed to urgently act on climate change?’ ‘How should housing needs best be met and where?’ ‘How wide a choice of consumer products should be provided? Which ones need to be better quality?’ ‘What investment is needed to switch from unwanted to wanted production?’ All of these questions, and more, could be worked out on the basis of a democratically agreed socialist plan of production, a plan that could then be applied in practice thanks to the nationalisation of the major banks, companies and corporations.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It was the lack of such a democratic input that led to the collapse of the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet Union. These states were run as top-down dictatorships without genuine workers’ democracy. Their privileged leaders erected statues of Lenin to pretend they were “communists” but ignored what Lenin had insisted was required for a socialist state: for elected representatives at every level, subject to democratic recall at any time; for their pay not to exceed the pay of the workers they represent; for workers’ control by all, “<i>so that all may become ‘bureaucrats’ for a time and that therefore nobody may be able to become a ‘bureaucrat’</i> ”. Those are the ideas that a genuine workers’ democracy would be based on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Socialist Party stands for a socialist plan of production that meets everyone’s needs, based on public ownership combined with democratic working-class control and management. Achieving that would at last allow all the hopes and dreams of generations of socialists and working-class fighters to finally become a reality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As Marx’s co-thinker, Friedrich Engels, wrote in ‘Socialism: Utopian and Scientific’, “<i>With the seizing of the means of production by society … anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, humanity, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones</i>”.</span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-59150379865059995532024-01-25T10:57:00.001+00:002024-01-25T10:57:06.592+00:00Housing: Time to put people's needs before developers' profits<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I issued the following press release this morning on behalf of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition in Westmorland and Lonsdale (@SouthLakesTUSC): </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtm_W5l1XZbgP3MD0peBlqRPq9FdAjAP3X0qjrENBSozczfKxcmY85K_6MWWBLxYVDzQk02jzvwvBEPr5gspkXAM13wsscM_OnJXPSXze2V_LE2pPi5-ef0KM2J6w4Fi6ZGOcN_xhOPbf6du5sHHtNqFQhzOLK6NMrMEArHFNrgEf_BGascUd3su0bjsYv/s1003/FB_IMG_1706171292262.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="1003" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtm_W5l1XZbgP3MD0peBlqRPq9FdAjAP3X0qjrENBSozczfKxcmY85K_6MWWBLxYVDzQk02jzvwvBEPr5gspkXAM13wsscM_OnJXPSXze2V_LE2pPi5-ef0KM2J6w4Fi6ZGOcN_xhOPbf6du5sHHtNqFQhzOLK6NMrMEArHFNrgEf_BGascUd3su0bjsYv/w400-h285/FB_IMG_1706171292262.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">TUSC says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">KENDAL NEEDS GENUINELY
AFFORDABLE RENTED COUNCIL HOMES<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">APPLY COUNCIL POLICY - OPPOSE THE STORY
HOMES “PHASE 4” PLANNING PERMISSION ON BRIGSTEER ROAD <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">TUSC<sup>1</sup></span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> in Westmorland and Lonsdale has submitted an objection to Story
Homes’ planning application for their proposed “Phase 4” of homes on Brigsteer
Rise in Kendal, based on a detailed analysis of the claims made by the
developer for the previous phases of this substantial development.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our analysis<sup>2</sup> shows:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Story
Homes were given permission to build the initial phases of the development even
though their plans failed to provide the amount of ‘affordable homes’ set out
in the council Core Strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Agreeing
the developer’s proposed plans for Phase 4 would mean that the overall
development would be completed with 71.4% (157/220) open market properties and
only 28.6% ‘affordable housing’ (63/220) – of which just 32 – just one in seven
– would be ‘affordable rental’ properties.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
developer has also been allowed to proceed with plans that fail to provide the
‘housing mix’ set out in the Core Strategy, building too high a proportion of its
bigger, more profitable, houses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Council accepted Story Homes’ claims that meeting its Core
Strategy would make the scheme commercially “unviable”. However, our analysis
suggests that the developer based this claim on income projections from house
sales that underestimated the actual income that will be generated. Story
Homes’ latest accounts for the year ending 31 March 2023 report that their “turnover
increased by 11.9% to £269.3m (2022: £240.7m) … Gross profit has increased to
£62.1m (2022: £59.0m)”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Martin Powell-Davies, who completed the analysis for
Westmorland and Lonsdale TUSC said:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Low-paid workers and their families see expensive developments
like Brigsteer Rise being built all around Kendal, but know that these are homes
that they cannot afford to live in. There’s a housing crisis in Westmorland. The
Council’s priority should be to provide genuinely affordable, sustainable, rented
council homes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s time that people’s
needs were put before developer’s profits”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Story Homes’ latest planning application for Brigsteer Rise should
be refused, at the very least unless they are prepared to complete their
development to a plan that ensures that the overall ‘housing mix’ and provision
of ‘affordable housing’ meets the levels set out in the Council’s Core
Strategy. However, given that even those homes deemed “affordable” in the plans
will, in reality, still be “unaffordable” to many local residents, the best way
to meet the needs of local people would be to reject this proposal entirely.
Instead, the Council should consult with local communities and trade unions
over how to deliver genuinely affordable homes and demand that the next
government, to be elected at some point in 2024, supports such a vitally needed
change in direction in housing policy.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">1</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> TUSC,
the </span><a href="https://www.tusc.org.uk/"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition</span></a><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, will be mounting an anti-cuts,
pro-public services challenge to all the main parties in the 2024 General
Election, including in Westmorland & Lonsdale.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">2</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> The analysis & full objection submitted on behalf of TUSC can be downloaded from </span><a href="https://bit.ly/42dwprF"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">https://bit.ly/42dwprF</span></a> but is also pasted below:</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Objection to Planning Application
Number 2023/1061/FPA - 108 dwelling houses and associated infrastructure
(Brigsteer Rise, Phase 4) by Story Homes.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I wish to object to the planning application for the reasons
set out below:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Summary<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As the Supporting Planning Statement submitted on behalf of
Story Homes makes clear, their application for further planning permission is
for “Phase 4 of the Brigsteer Rise development in Kendal”. In considering the
suitability of this application, the Council should reassess the previous
claims and arguments made by Story Homes in applying for planning permission
for the initial phases of this development.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As set out below, I believe in particular that the claims
about ‘viability’ made by Story Homes in documents in the earlier phases of
this development, specifically about the provision of ‘affordable housing’ and
‘housing mix’, need to be reconsidered.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the basis of such an assessment, planning permission
should be refused, at the very least unless Story Homes are prepared to
complete the final phase of their development to a plan that ensures that the
overall ‘housing mix’ and provision of ‘affordable housing’ of the whole
development is at least in line with the Core Strategy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Given that even those homes deemed “affordable” in the plans will
nevertheless be, in reality, “unaffordable” to many local residents, the
Council has a duty to at least insist that its own Core Strategy policies are
applied in full. However, the best way to meet the needs of local young people,
low-paid workers, and their families, would be to reject this proposal entirely
and to instead begin a process of consultation with local communities and trade
unions over how to deliver genuinely affordable, sustainable, secure, publicly
owned and democratically controlled rented housing within Kendal and the
surrounding areas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Core
Strategy <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Supporting Planning Statement submitted on behalf of
Story Homes itself refers to the following aspects of the South Lakeland Core
Strategy:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Policy CS6.2 – Dwelling Mix and Type</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> requires new development to offer a
range of housing sizes and types, taking account of the housing requirement of
different groups of society, including the need to deliver low-cost market
housing as part of the overall housing mix. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Policy CS6.3 – Provision of Affordable Housing</span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> requires provision of <u>no less
than</u> 35% affordable housing on schemes of nine dwellings or more. … <a name="_Hlk156153763"><u>Exceptionally</u>, a lower requirement for affordable
housing will be acceptable where there is clear evidence that it would make the
development unviable.<o:p></o:p></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The proposed planning application, particularly when
considered over all four phases of the development, does not match these
aspects of the Core Strategy and so should be rejected as it stands.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><a name="_Hlk156149349"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dwelling Mix and Type<o:p></o:p></span></b></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Previous Planning Committee papers have also referred to the recommendations
of South Lakeland District Council’s 2017 Strategic Housing Market Assessment:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZopx-5p6mHJB-FthkRkyJ33aHFNCXmtYYkFD87RvGalR6lH3SCedlPlLfJE7RWAx9_-BYySoJNxoPj0dW0ONExhndI6tXX-JIoZUKY78bC9JORLLIWk91xYY01H1fCp1btcIVAfu0eNf-vZD2hnmwWXwXIKN5o9hezGk6xZPFojPHugVhknMhc9MRVNO1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="940" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZopx-5p6mHJB-FthkRkyJ33aHFNCXmtYYkFD87RvGalR6lH3SCedlPlLfJE7RWAx9_-BYySoJNxoPj0dW0ONExhndI6tXX-JIoZUKY78bC9JORLLIWk91xYY01H1fCp1btcIVAfu0eNf-vZD2hnmwWXwXIKN5o9hezGk6xZPFojPHugVhknMhc9MRVNO1=w640-h258" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Planning Committee Report for the meeting of</span> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Thursday, 26 August 2021 (para 5.55)</span>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">noted that the proposed mix of
market housing in the latest iteration of the applicant’s layout was “<b><i>clearly
a very poor match to the expectations of the SHMA</i></b>”. The proposal
submitted by Story Homes for the initial phases was nevertheless accepted.
However, this should not be allowed to happen again in the light of the
analysis below (which I believe is correct from the evidence available on the
planning portal) summarising the proposed housing mix for all four phases of
the development in total: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Open Market Homes<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The analysis shows that, if the Council allows Story Homes to
proceed with its plans, the Brigsteer Road development will be heavily skewed
towards properties of 4 -bedrooms or more, completely ignoring the
recommendations of the SHMA:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrRc7lyo3jj4RHuXPx20A9tatwOy-ZAW7JFyYyS3C6pX_-H8pBITbLNMz1Csp9fTbVTL7YxHGADde7RbV5E3E6d2DL2_5QYTjwE4JCyBu22fnIJqBr99wz21gaESbnC-11pil7ZuLUN6U68UrxzKDgp26CunrIQB7gjObXlarFEsR0j1kKmUpPaxtdh1Ki" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="816" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjrRc7lyo3jj4RHuXPx20A9tatwOy-ZAW7JFyYyS3C6pX_-H8pBITbLNMz1Csp9fTbVTL7YxHGADde7RbV5E3E6d2DL2_5QYTjwE4JCyBu22fnIJqBr99wz21gaESbnC-11pil7ZuLUN6U68UrxzKDgp26CunrIQB7gjObXlarFEsR0j1kKmUpPaxtdh1Ki=w640-h334" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Low Cost Ownership<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The analysis shows that, if the Council allows Story Homes to
proceed with its plans, the Brigsteer Road development will again be a “poor
match” to the SHMA, particularly giving no opportunity for low cost ownership
of one-bedroom properties:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikpzwrsvavZRD2u1nM9ZxouBn-hpFI1_9MNANCPo9t_m6nvVxiRlhDQkM7C4-Z50dNnY88piQxfaIHWIq-LUOYGrmXMHs5RHgMtj9q8Ctg-6VUDYa7ISJtptG54sn8rBY3XAZ9q2k2J7Zlh3DEhc3MpUig0QOLACTgJuWJF57vo_jbfmR_EDoXbWhemlGb" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="823" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikpzwrsvavZRD2u1nM9ZxouBn-hpFI1_9MNANCPo9t_m6nvVxiRlhDQkM7C4-Z50dNnY88piQxfaIHWIq-LUOYGrmXMHs5RHgMtj9q8Ctg-6VUDYa7ISJtptG54sn8rBY3XAZ9q2k2J7Zlh3DEhc3MpUig0QOLACTgJuWJF57vo_jbfmR_EDoXbWhemlGb=w640-h246" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Affordable
Rented Homes<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The analysis shows that, if the Council allows Story Homes to
proceed with its plans, the Brigsteer Road development</span> <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">will also be failing to meet the need
for larger families to have access to affordable rented accommodation, with
very little provision being provided for properties with more than two
bedrooms:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPmz_BTF1kuuUOgOy9r6Xa4y3kAR1bzX5ukG2EoI9hkNrmTLdJ4_VsAhHUwI9BqZ0egLgOYeCIVVryHyeRNpdBYHeLvnwelVd-e0GYNTPlFkxXOb4kFkon6QcnIuMsU7jDRDYR1kTlrgqCVZI6ta4ayxXYlIKazu2XLnCXYSmqb8udJVI9CyLIJNJHvnxX" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="319" data-original-width="827" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPmz_BTF1kuuUOgOy9r6Xa4y3kAR1bzX5ukG2EoI9hkNrmTLdJ4_VsAhHUwI9BqZ0egLgOYeCIVVryHyeRNpdBYHeLvnwelVd-e0GYNTPlFkxXOb4kFkon6QcnIuMsU7jDRDYR1kTlrgqCVZI6ta4ayxXYlIKazu2XLnCXYSmqb8udJVI9CyLIJNJHvnxX=w640-h246" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I would also note that the Strategic Planning Committee
paperwork for the meeting of 19 September 2023 (page 27) contains a request
from the Housing Strategy Team based on “feedback from registered providers and
their tenants” that the “Branford type house … the default 2 bedroom type
offered by Story Homes” is too small in size. The Team asks if “this 71m</span><sup>2</sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
model … is potentially replaced with a larger 2 bedroom property that would
provide a more sustainable family property i.e. a 2 bed 4 person criteria. (79m</span><sup>2</sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
)”. The 6 ‘Branford’ homes in the table above suggest this request has been
largely ignored.</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Social Need before Developer Profit<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The reason for Story Homes wishing to skew the overall housing
mix of the development towards larger homes for open market was also made clear
in the Planning Committee papers for the initial phases of the development (Thursday,
26 August 2021, para 5.59). There it is explained that “the replacement of some
of these larger units with smaller units would reduce overall GDV [Gross
Development Value, the revenue anticipated from a completed development scheme],
and have an adverse impact on scheme viability.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Council should not allow a developers’ wish to increase
its profits to override both social need and its own strategic policies. The
argument that the developer must be allowed to enforce a greater GDV or “scheme
viability” is at risk is not one that should be accepted. I shall return to the
specifics of Story Homes financial position below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Provision
of “Affordable Homes”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Under current legislation, the definitions of "Affordable
Housing" are already insufficient. For example, many low-paid residents know
that rents set “at a rent of up to 80 per cent of local market rent” are not
genuinely “affordable” to them. Nor will many have the required income to access
“low cost ownership” and even those that do then have to face meeting the costs
of both mortgage and rental payments. Council strategy should therefore instead
focus on providing genuinely affordable social housing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The very least that the Council should do is to at least
insist that the Brigsteer Road development complies with its Core Strategy requirement
“of no less than 35% affordable housing” on schemes of this size.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As the analyses above show, agreeing the proposed plans for
Phase 4 would mean that the overall development would be completed with 71.4% (157/220)
open market properties and only 28.6% ‘affordable housing’ (63/220) – of which just
32 – just one in seven – are affordable rental properties. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The absolute minimum requirement for any planning permission
to be agreed for Phase 4 should be to insist that the developer reduces the
number of open market properties by at least 14 and instead builds them as
“affordable homes”. This would at least increase their number to 77 – 35% of
the total – at least just then meeting the Core Strategy requirement of “no
less than 35%”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">However, the best way to meet the needs of local young
people, low-paid workers, and their families, would be to reject this proposal
entirely and to instead begin a process of consultation with local communities
and trade unions over how to deliver genuinely affordable, sustainable, secure,
publicly owned and democratically controlled rented housing within Kendal and
the surrounding areas. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Council should also approach the new government, to be elected
at some point in 2024, to seek their support for such a change in approach to
housing development.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Development
Viability<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Story Homes will undoubtedly object that any requirement to
provide more “affordable homes” will make their development “unviable”. After
all, this is the argument that they have made ever since the first stages of
the planning process for the Brigsteer Road development.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Planning Committee papers for Thursday, 26 August 2021 (para
5.13) point out that the Core Strategy allows for the 35% requirement for
affordable housing to be breached – although only “exceptionally” – “where
there is clear evidence that it would make the development unviable”. And Story
Homes claimed that they faced just such “exceptional circumstances”, insisting
that they could only afford to go ahead with 20.5% of affordable homes in the
initial phases of the development. In fact, their consultants, Grasscroft
Development Solutions (GDS), suggested that, in doing so, Story Homes were proposing
“a very generous commercial decision which has been arrived at in spite of the
scheme viability" (para 5.32). Such a claim should not have been accepted
and certainly should not be when considering the current planning submission
and the overall mix and affordable homes provision across all phases of the development.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2021 (para 5.43), GDS proposed that the total sales
revenue would be £27.38M, made up from £25.785M from the sale of 70 open market
units and £1.60M from the 18 ‘affordable units’. GDS estimated the total
construction costs to be around £23M, leaving a profit on Gross Development
Value of 15.97% (£4,373,042). Cumbria County Council’s valuer (para 5.45) was
reported as estimating a higher profit on GDV of 18.09% (£4,961,104).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I think it will come as a shock to the many local tenants and
residents struggling to pay their rents and mortgages that the Council papers
(para 5.44) reported that current National Planning Guidance considers a 15 –
20% profit to be “a suitable return to developers”. Are the Council again going
to agree that the ‘requirement’ for the developer to be able to report a multi-million
pound profit is of greater importance than the requirement to provide genuinely
affordable homes to local people? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.0pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What was
the actual sales revenue?<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How much has the actual sales revenue been compared to what the
Council was initially told? To provide at least an initial answer to that
question, I have conducted a rough analysis of the house prices currently being
advertised on the Story Homes website and/or through online estate agent
archives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It suggests that the actual revenue that might be expected to
be generated from the sale of the 70 open market homes might be £32.375M. If
so, that would be £6.59M more than the £25.785M estimated by GDS in 2021. Certainly, rather than accepting the claims made by a developer at face value, councillors should conduct a clear review of the claims made about commercial viability in 2021.</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj50m_RByCPnVGtQjPwnK14k256k6OC43S71HDtMekcP0T9HPtxhBbC-VgJupIAJEG48WsiYXvRy-0am1opZr0Je2Mtw11Uj0q7BcpYE-5-fsAT9QGqXIMneLH5esu9HdLqJ9egGG3BlbA4i5HTeBKrzy11eppNdBnKc71zawt8_3XieN3xNWZUpfjNVi-K" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="756" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj50m_RByCPnVGtQjPwnK14k256k6OC43S71HDtMekcP0T9HPtxhBbC-VgJupIAJEG48WsiYXvRy-0am1opZr0Je2Mtw11Uj0q7BcpYE-5-fsAT9QGqXIMneLH5esu9HdLqJ9egGG3BlbA4i5HTeBKrzy11eppNdBnKc71zawt8_3XieN3xNWZUpfjNVi-K=w400-h236" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Story Homes Annual Report<o:p></o:p></span></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One final bit of research that councillors might want to
carry out is to examine the latest Annual Report for Story Homes Limited, which
was recently uploaded onto the Companies House website.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Strategic Report for the year ending 31 March 2023 states
that “<i>during the year, there were 915 homes sold (2022: 846). Turnover
increased by 11.9% to £269.3m (2022: £240.7m) in line with the business
returning to a normal year following the Covid-19 pandemic. Gross profit has
increased to £62.1m (2022: £59.0m). The retained profit after tax for the year
was £24.3m (2022: retained profit after tax of £23.6m)</i>”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The notes to the financial statements also record that “<i>the
highest paid director received remuneration of £882,430 (2022: £531,230)</i>”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Do these accounts present a picture of a company in such
“exceptionally” difficult circumstances that it is simply “unviable” to provide
affordable homes?</span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-5329619675645553982024-01-11T14:18:00.006+00:002024-01-12T09:40:23.618+00:00A change in approach needed on agency supply advice<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>After the 'Post Office Scandal' - school managers need to stop and think too</b></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Right now, everyone is talking about the 'Post Office Scandal', outraged at how a powerful organisation refused to accept their own failures and instead sought to bully their critics into silence. Thanks to the dogged determination of Alan Bates and other campaigners, the way that Post Office Limited, alongside Fujitsu and Government Ministers, refused to acknowledge the faults with the 'Horizon' IT system - and instead disgracefully pursued </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Subpostmasters </span><span style="font-family: arial;">through the courts - is now out in the open.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixYF58eKP89VxhbCyjoiMsIINms9QgyaK5Yh9v7x0flfxlPIrwCld7AmGsCZMngMBN840d30RFiZuBZV5dIofh5IH4zjKjy_eZBisAwJwVPJjEjw4eRYUa5o_amh0Org2leIX-bFt90_vFeg-fpmw8ZXEkcxslv2QJX-Ri4-PbVoOadiytgyuWxeroc8SV/s768/761676-mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-768x768.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixYF58eKP89VxhbCyjoiMsIINms9QgyaK5Yh9v7x0flfxlPIrwCld7AmGsCZMngMBN840d30RFiZuBZV5dIofh5IH4zjKjy_eZBisAwJwVPJjEjw4eRYUa5o_amh0Org2leIX-bFt90_vFeg-fpmw8ZXEkcxslv2QJX-Ri4-PbVoOadiytgyuWxeroc8SV/s320/761676-mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-768x768.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Produced by ITV studios and available to stream on ITV+</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps the reason why this story has sparked such a widespread public reaction is because so many workers recognise something of that bullying approach in the way that they are treated too. And that includes school staff. Schools may not have pursued teachers into the courts like the Post Office, but every local union caseworker has had to deal with similarly broken colleagues, bullied out of their post under draconian threats of 'capability' procedures. More often than not, they have also had to sign a 'Non Disclosure Agreement' that stops them from talking out about how they have been treated.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Some school managers need to stop and reflect whether their practice needs to change. Are they just piling the pressure put on them via Ofsted and League Tables down onto their staff, pushing too many to breaking-point, when, instead, they should be standing up against the impossible demands put onto schools? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Forced into insecure, underpaid, supply work</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The impossible workload, and the hounding of staff by supposed 'support plans' and capability targets, is one (although certainly not the only) reason why some teachers end up working for privatised supply agencies. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">As someone whose own personal circumstances</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> meant that I earned my living in this way for the last years of my teaching career, I know what a difficult way of earning an income this can be.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Work is uncertain, sometimes leaving you waiting for a phone call from the agency that never comes on a day you were hoping for work. Supply teaching is demanding, constantly having to plan and adapt, sometimes at very short notice, to different classes and different school systems. Worst of all, thanks to the privatised system of profiteering supply agencies through which most supply teachers are hired, you are working for less - sometimes far less - than the 'rate for the job' that would apply under statutory teachers' pay scales. On top of that, you have no access to the Teachers' Pension Scheme and no income to tide you over the school holidays.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">That exploitation continues, despite the introduction of legislation fought for by trade unions that was meant to provide equal treatment. The Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), introduced in 2011, should guarantee that, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">after</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> a qualifying period of 12 weeks in the same job, agency workers</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> receive </span><span style="font-family: arial;">the same basic employment and working conditions as colleagues who have been recruited directly. But most agency school staff are still not being paid 'the rate for the job' that applies to directly employed staff under the Schoolteachers Pay and Conditions Document.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's worth non-agency employees remembering that unions didn't push for AWR just to protect agency staff, but to protect permanent staff as well. After all, if employers can find a way to pay one section of the workforce on lower rates of pay, then, especially when employers are looking to cut costs, they will find a way to get rid of more expensive employees and employ cheaper agency staff instead. So demanding equal treatment for all staff is in everyone's interests, especially when schools are going to face more funding cuts, whoever wins the 2024 General Election.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Unions must also reflect on failings instead of just attacking critics</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Sadly, recent events in the NEU suggest to me that some reflection is also needed at the top of my own union, the NEU. Just before the end of last term, the regular weekly bulletin emailed to NEU Officers carried advice which included the following about the "National Supply Teachers Network": </span><span style="font-family: arial;">"<i>The National Officers have recently considered several complaints, queries and concerns from NEU members and local officers about the status of the National Supply Teachers Network (NSTN) ... </i></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>NEU members, branches and districts have been approached via NEU forums and encouraged to become members or to affiliate as a union group to the NSTN. Individual members have been encouraged to be represented in Agency Worker Regulations casework by the Network ... </i></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Branches should not refer any NEU casework to the Network</i>".</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I was not the only supply teacher who has worked with the NSTN to be angered by this advice. The NSTN is a group of activists who have been trying to support and advise supply staff for the past decade, and, yes, that has sometimes included representation, and, yes, has also included criticism of the Union. Whatever concerns Union officials might have about that, and perhaps the way that some of those criticisms have been raised, sending out a circular referring to unspecified "complaints, queries and concerns" gives no opportunity for those to be answered by the NSTN.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">More to the point in the present context, rather than just attacking its critics, I think the NEU needs to reflect on whether the criticisms from the NSTN are justified. In particular, why are union members seeking advice and representation from an unofficial Network, rather than from the Union? If it's because the advice from the Union is inadequate, telling members that they haven't got a case when the Network can show that they have, then the answer is clear.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A meeting of the NSTN that I attended last night indeed suggests that the NSTN has been succeeding in cases where the NEU has not. A report was given outlining settlements won for members through the Agency Workers Regulations that have amounted to hundreds of thousands of pounds over the last few years. In recent weeks settlements had also been won using the "Harpur Judgement" over paid holiday entitlement. Many of these cases had only been taken up by the NSTN after members had previously being advised by the Union that they would not succeed.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Sadly, I am not surprised that supply teachers are sometimes being wrongly advised that they do not have a case under the Agency Workers Regulations. That's because I have been trying to point out the weakness of the AWR advice issued by the NEU to its caseworkers for several years.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Instead of attacking critics, the Union needs to reflect and consider its own failings.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><u><br /></u></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">***</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>NEU Advice on Agency Workers Regulations - some thoughts:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">For information, I am also adding here a copy of a letter that I sent in 2022, as requested from me as a member of the NEU's Supply Educators Organising Forum, about three parts of the AWR advice on the <a href="https://neu.org.uk/advice/member-groups/supply-teachers/supply-teachers-rights-work/agency-worker-regulations" target="_blank">NEU website</a>. I believe these concerns are still valid:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times;"><i>1) "The [AWR] comparison is not to the pay of an agency worker in a ‘comparable role’ – it is to the pay that the agency worker would receive if they were recruited to do the same role directly by the school. Where the supply teacher or member of support staff is on a daily contract, comparison will be to the pay of a supply worker engaged directly on a day-to-day basis. Where the duration of the engagement is agreed at the outset to be for a fixed or minimum period of, e.g. one term or one year, comparison will be with the pay of a teacher/member of support staff engaged directly on a fixed-term contract for the duration of the engagement".</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">First of all, I think to raise this comparison is at the very least unhelpful and, although I appreciate that there might be different legal opinions, questionable in its accuracy. Section 5 of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 refer to “<i>a comparable employee … engaged in the same or broadly similar work</i>”. Yet, as the NEU website itself states in a later section entitled 'What is the ‘same role’?", "<i>A role will be considered the ‘same’ role unless it involves a substantially different type of work ... all classroom teaching is substantively the ‘same’ role for the purposes of the Regulations</i>". Therefore, our starting point should be to stress that teaching is the "<u>same or broadly similar work</u>", whether carried out by an agency teacher, a supply teacher contracted directly, or those on a long-term contract. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Secondly, and perhaps worst of all, the way that this paragraph is worded implies that a supply teacher employed directly on a day-to-day basis might be paid on a different salary scale to one paid on a fixed term contract. On what basis would that be the case and why would we raise it as a possibility on the NEU website? This advice potentially undermines the pay rates of directly employed supply teachers as well as agency teachers too. Again, the point is partly answered (and contradicted) by the later paragraph saying "<i>Most school pay policies will not contain separate provisions on the pay of supply teachers engaged on a day-to-day basis ... the NEU will argue that this approach is potentially discriminatory on various grounds and should not therefore be followed ...So agency supply teachers are, after 12 weeks, entitled to be paid the same pay rate as if engaged directly as a supply teacher or as a teacher on a fixed term contract</i>."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">Instead of raising the damaging possibility that supply staff should be paid at a lower rate than those on long-term contracts, I would ask colleagues to consider wording along the lines that I have proposed in my admittedly <a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2021/12/agency-workers-regulations-myth-busters.html" target="_blank">unofficial advice sheets</a>: "The pay and conditions that must be applied under the AWR are those that ordinarily apply in that school - i.e. the standard pay scales that apply to direct recruits. For agency teachers, the entitlement is to the teachers’ pay scales applying in that school".</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span>2) "</span>The school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD) allows schools to decide for themselves how much they will pay newly appointed teachers – they do not have to pay newly appointed teachers at the same pay rate or pay point as in their previous school or in previous direct employment. Many schools follow NEU policy by adopting a school pay policy, which provides for pay portability, ie previous pay entitlements for experience, to be maintained for newly appointed teachers. Where a school pay policy is silent on the issue, it is possible to refer to previous pay decisions in order to infer a policy that should be followed in subsequent decisions. </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The NEU would therefore argue that an agency teacher who was employed on, for example, M6 or U3 in a previous permanent post should be paid at that same rate as a supply teacher. But that teacher would not be entitled to that rate after 12 weeks if the pay policy does not provide for pay portability or such a policy inferred from previous practice"</span>.</span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">This is also unhelpful advice as it starts by raising the argument of the employers - that the lack of automatic 'pay portability' in the STPCD means the AWR does not apply - rather than starting by asserting the union argument in a far stronger fashion that this is not the case. Again, I would ask colleagues to consider wording along the lines that I have proposed in my unofficial advice, notably that:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">* 'BEIS' advice “where a hirer has pay scales or pay structures” states clearly that "<i><u>starter grades which apply primarily, or exclusively, to agency workers may not be compliant if not applied generally to direct recruits</u></i>”. In short, if a school says it will only pay an agency teacher at, say, an M1 rate, then it will need to show that it also recruits new permanent staff at M1 too.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">* To emphasise that a school can’t assert that “we can pay you what we want” if an agency teacher can show that, in practice, when it recruits permanent staff, it does take experience into account and starts them at higher points on its pay scale. We should advise that useful evidence for the agency teacher and their trade union rep to gather can include what the school pay policy says about starting rates for new recruits, what rates are being quoted in adverts for permanent teaching posts and evidence of pay rates that apply to those who have been appointed.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">* It would also be useful to stress the point made in the Rush v Academics Ltd Tribunal that “<i><u>[She] was entitled to have the benefit of a conversation with the [Agency] and the Trust at the 12 week mark</u> as to what would have been the appropriate wage for her. She was denied that benefit</i>” and that therefore the employer has a duty to justify at the 12 week point what rate it is now going to pay, and why.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times;"><i>3) "Schools are increasingly asking agencies to provide ‘cover supervisors’ whose roles do not include ‘specified work’ and who are therefore paid less. In circumstances where you are not undertaking specified work, there is no right to be paid the same rate as a teacher regardless of the fact that you are a qualified teacher".</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">This, again, is unhelpful advice. Yes, it is true that schools are attempting to undercut pay rates by arguing that supply teachers are not undertaking specified work. The NEU website should be boldly asserting that this is an argument that we do not accept and that the work being carried out by a supply teacher is, indeed, specified work requiring active teaching. Once again, I have tried to take up this argument in my unofficial advice. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span>In particular, NEU advice should be pointing out that: </span>DfE guidance on the Agency Workers Regulations states: “<u><i>Teaching Pupils. If the school asks a temporary work agency to provide a teacher to carry out specified work in a school and the person engaged to do the work is a qualified teacher, they should be paid as a qualified teacher</i></u>". </span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">We should assert that an agency teacher is hired to ensure that far more than ‘supervision’, only responding to questions ‘about process’, is taking place. As a qualified teacher, they will indeed be ‘actively teaching’, answering questions about ideas, explaining concepts, delivering lessons, assessing progress. They will indeed be carrying out activities that constitute “specified work” under the Regulations.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">We should argue strongly that, to qualify for the AWR, the agency teacher will have been working on an assignment for over 12 weeks. Therefore, they will have been planning and preparing in order to be able to carry out their teaching work. Yes, they may be drawing on plans and resources provided to them, but that is simply recommended practice to reduce unnecessary workload.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">In summary, I believe the current NEU website advice remains inadequate and I would ask that the relevant Executive Sub-Committee asks for a review of this advice, seeking the input of those elected to the Supply and Home Tutors' OF. </span></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-16848409172894445662023-10-10T13:20:00.002+01:002023-10-10T13:20:16.698+01:00Global Warning: Another fruitless talking shop<p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Global scientific monitoring has recorded 2023 as being almost certainly “the hottest in human history”. As the year nears its end, representatives of the world’s governments will again be gathering at the latest Conference of the Parties to the UN climate convention (COP28) to discuss what can be done to avert climate crisis.</span></b></p><p><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLBoDKKRPYBvoldALRgmzKKMMTTROrhPXJ6Weq_fyd8gQNBQiTkIfcp5SjG9ge_unl47aKGJ4hC4Ila_lC-d6fIm9P7Jz8qnLFYqn1hHNsK82ArJESOA3bbhTZTYNAFAjw9X6JXJAZEnh2pHP9_UpQBx8Wyuc_N60MQoa4yLEdrzTUBcPu5x6vxShdGGNy/s696/Centre-696x453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="696" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLBoDKKRPYBvoldALRgmzKKMMTTROrhPXJ6Weq_fyd8gQNBQiTkIfcp5SjG9ge_unl47aKGJ4hC4Ila_lC-d6fIm9P7Jz8qnLFYqn1hHNsK82ArJESOA3bbhTZTYNAFAjw9X6JXJAZEnh2pHP9_UpQBx8Wyuc_N60MQoa4yLEdrzTUBcPu5x6vxShdGGNy/w400-h260/Centre-696x453.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This article is published in Issue 271 of <a href="https://socialismtoday.org/global-warning-another-fruitless-talking-shop" target="_blank">'Socialism Today'</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Even the least cynical onlooker must already be wondering what can be achieved when the COP28 presidency has been awarded to the chief executive of the state oil company of the host state – the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Bitter experience of previous COP summits suggests that, while few serious capitalist politicians can any longer deny the threats posed by climate change, nothing will be agreed that matches the urgency required to deal with them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The nature of capitalism dictates that the world’s capitalist powers will act according to their own short-term interests, particularly in an era of capitalist economic and geopolitical instability. In an increasingly multipolar world of competing regional blocs, competing nation states will be unable to agree and enact the necessary global transition.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The scientific understanding of the urgent steps that need to be taken to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions already exists. What is missing is the required socialist plan of investment and global collaboration that could allow those steps to be taken on a world scale.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">2023 has been a year when the effects of accelerating climate change have become an increasingly visible reality, including in some of the world’s most advanced capitalist countries. Air and sea temperatures have reached record levels around the globe. Droughts, wildfires, floods and storms have taken place with increasing regularity and severity.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">These extreme weather events are just what climate scientists have been predicting for years – unless global greenhouse gas emissions were urgently curbed. But, far from falling, their levels have risen yet further. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are now 50% greater than pre-industrial levels, the highest measured – including through paleoclimatic estimates – for 800,000 years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This raises real fears that the various feedback mechanisms that have long concerned climate scientists could further accelerate global warming. For example, as sea ice melts, less sunlight is reflected, increasing the rate at which yet more solar energy is absorbed. This could also disrupt ocean circulation, radically changing global weather patterns.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This was the climate science that led to the COP summit in Paris in 2015 agreeing to seek to limit global average temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5 °C) above pre-industrial levels. But the latest analysis from the Climate Action Tracker research group suggests that even the most optimistic scenario – based on full implementation of the pledges made so far by global governments – would still result in a likely increase of 1.8 °C by 2100.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A rise of 1.8 °C would be disastrous enough. However, based on current government actions, rather than just their promises, that prediction becomes a doom-laden global temperature rise of 2.7 °C by 2100 – and with the world continuing to warm yet further after that. That kind of overall average rise would make much of the planet “unliveable” and seriously test humanity’s ability to adapt to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Capitalism will fail to tackle the crisis</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It’s clear that urgent action is needed – but it won’t be delivered by COP28. The preliminary program agreed for COP28 by the UAE presidency provides an advance warning of how these talks will be directed into discussions that will inevitably fail to challenge the capitalist status quo – and so fail to tackle the impending climate crisis.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In typically corporate language, it states that “COP28 will focus on delivering climate and nature co-benefits through a range of financing mechanisms and packages”, seeking “to accelerate private sector commitments to nature-positive accountability frameworks”. In other words, COP28 will continue the approach of the previous COP27 talks in Egypt, putting the emphasis on mitigating rather than ending the effects of climate change, and on relying on the same kind of market mechanisms that have completely failed to bring about any real change over successive COP talks.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">COP27 agreed to set up a ‘loss and damage’ fund to support countries hit by extreme climate events. But, with growing concerns across capitalist nation states about the state of their individual economies, the details of who pays what into the fund were not resolved. No doubt the wrangling and the fudging over the details will continue at COP28.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What could prove even more damning for world capitalism, however, is an ongoing failure to act on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. COP26 in Glasgow had agreed that governments should cut their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of such emissions in time for COP27. This was part of an agreed strategy to make sure global emissions peaked by 2025 before being halved by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, as the only chance to limit temperature rises to the 1.5 °C target. But only a minority of countries revised down their NDCs. Rather than demand nation states act to avert crisis, COP27 simply dropped the previous COP26 commitment to a 2025 emissions peak target altogether.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the face of the growing evidence of the climate disaster that faces the world, logic states that COP28 needs to adopt a radical change of course. But the logic of capitalism places short-term profit and the interests of individual nation states above that of the future of humanity.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some sections of the capitalist class are beginning to recognise how the accelerating pace of climate change threatens the stability of their own system. They also see the development of green technology as a way to promote economic growth. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is an example of this. However, this is not being done as part of an agreed global plan but as part of a protectionist trade war with China.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On the other hand, pursuing the rapid transition required to even have a chance of meeting that 1.5 °C target would leave some of the world’s most powerful corporations, and the individual nation states and financial institutions tied to them, facing losses of trillions of dollars. As well as the obvious fossil fuel interests, the profits of other sectors like construction and chemical industries would also be hit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Increasing protectionism and pressures on global supply chains, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, have seen fossil fuel producers making record profits. The ‘big five’ – Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies – alone made a combined $200 billion in profits in 2022 – over $6m every hour for Exxon!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, whatever prettifying words are put into the draft texts for discussion at COP28, behind the scenes these powers will be striving might and main to make sure no binding commitments are agreed. Even if they are, left to operate as private capitalist concerns, these firms will seek to sabotage real change, so as to protect their own narrow interests. Only their nationalisation under democratic workers’ control and management, as part of a socialist global plan, can ensure that genuine commitments are made, whilst also ensuring their workers’ employment is transferred to the millions of new ‘green jobs’ that would need to be created. Such a socialist plan is therefore fundamental to successful action on climate change.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>What strategy for climate activists?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The strategy for climate activists to adopt has to be guided by an understanding that only a complete change of system, to a democratic socialist planned economy, offers a solution. To win that, requires winning the support of the organised working-class and poor, who, taking mass action together, alone have the power to bring about that change.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, that is not yet understood by the leadership of groups such as Just Stop Oil (JSO) in England and Wales. In the build up to COP28 they are again planning a series of actions such as ‘slow marches’ and other ‘non-violent direct action’, calling on their supporters to be ready to be arrested for their participation. There is no doubting the honest determination of many of these activists, but the strategy is based on an incorrect model of what brings about change.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">JSO meetings often refer to the fall of apartheid and the success of the suffragettes as examples of where the actions of heroic individuals brought about change. In reality, neither universal suffrage in Britain nor black majority rule in South Africa were brought about in this way. They were the result of mass collective action from below, combined with capitalism recognising the need to grant reforms from above in order to safeguard its own rule.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In essence, JSO tactics rely on the false premise that if sufficient arrests are made, and sufficient disruption caused, politicians will have to start to act. But they will only take serious steps if they feel that their system itself is under threat. Lobbying the political representatives of capitalism to ‘see sense’ – even if through the form of direct action – will not achieve that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Civil disobedience – for example as part of strike action – certainly has a role to play in any mass movement for change. However, the ongoing JSO emphasis on seeking arrest risks putting off all but a small core of climate activists from taking part, whilst also giving the capitalist state an excuse to bring in further repressive legislation to be used against mass protest. Tory and Labour politicians alike will also attempt to use the frustrations of those affected by activists’ protests to try and divide the force that actually has the power to really bring about change – the united working-class. Instead, what is needed is an emphasis on mass protest, linked to the need for socialist change to end both capitalist exploitation and climate change.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The inevitable failure of COP28 will further expose the complete inability of world capitalism to take the measures required to act to prevent an impending climate crisis. But, at the same time, the economic and political crises facing capitalism will also expose their inability to offer a decent future of any kind to a new generation of workers and youth. The task of socialists is to bring together those drawn into action over climate change with those fighting back over low wages, housing, inequality and all the other failings of crumbling capitalism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A mass movement built on those forces would have the strength to force the world’s capitalist politicians to actually enact some of their climate pledges – but, above all, it would have the strength to take decision making out of their failed hands and into the hands of the workers of the world. That would at last bring about a genuine global collaboration, utilising the world’s resources for the benefit of all, not for the short-term gain of a wealthy elite who have put the future of our planet at risk.</span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-65172446622137817232023-07-18T17:54:00.000+01:002023-07-18T17:54:09.871+01:00Vote Reject!<p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Last Thursday, the NEU National Executive agreed, by 44 votes to 22, to recommend acceptance of the government’s latest pay offer - a 6.5% increase for September 2023. Now it’s up to NEU members to decide. An online e-vote opens today, Tuesday 18 July, and runs on to Friday 28 July. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">I am pasting below a statement issued by the five Socialist Party members on the NEC, part of the third of the Executive that voted against recommending the deal, urging NEU members to vote to REJECT it too. They are also hosting a Zoom meeting, tomorrow, Wednesday 19 July, to explain further with an open invitation to NEU members and reps to come and ask their questions and discuss how to build a fighting NEU: </span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJc6RGUi5Dy634ENHAy5fln5yo5ntUxvSvVbqGbs6p9mh83E6acptHjxCTBPmlRmuqUgr1cGgFNclLHZEnt4kxERPf3Lxw7J97bdACf9ZK1RLIE-aIWT8Id4PwsR9aKM1YbYJFCW7IhJYQ0HEj6jF7gT9o672it76La_2MLGGwvKatlUu_WU0BsnlSoyQ/s1024/IMG_20230716_184822_304.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJc6RGUi5Dy634ENHAy5fln5yo5ntUxvSvVbqGbs6p9mh83E6acptHjxCTBPmlRmuqUgr1cGgFNclLHZEnt4kxERPf3Lxw7J97bdACf9ZK1RLIE-aIWT8Id4PwsR9aKM1YbYJFCW7IhJYQ0HEj6jF7gT9o672it76La_2MLGGwvKatlUu_WU0BsnlSoyQ/w400-h400/IMG_20230716_184822_304.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Accepting the deal means accepting two more years of pay cuts</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">NEU members have taken determined strike action for good reason. Teachers’ pay in England has fallen by over 20% in real terms since 2010. Food, fuel, rents and mortgages keep going up. But this deal means:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Nothing more offered for 2022</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We started the dispute because last September’s award was just 5%, still correctly described on the NEU website as “another huge real terms pay cut”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">You rightly voted by 98% in March to reject a previous deal, although that at least included an extra £1,000 lump-sum for this year. This new deal doesn’t even offer that. If we accept it, we’ll have won nothing more for 2022 at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>6.5% for 2023 is yet another pay cut </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The general secretaries are claiming the deal should be accepted as it is the “largest ever recommendation” from the School Teachers’ Review Body. But we’re also facing the “largest ever” inflation rates since the STRB began! It’s a lot less than teachers in Scotland have won, leaving their main scale £7,000 better than ours. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The junior doctors have already rejected their offer of 6% saying it “represents yet another pay cut in real terms”. We should do the same. RPI inflation is still running at 11.3% annually, and at 24% compounded over the last two years. Accepting this deal means accepting two more years of pay cuts. We must fight on too.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlFD6SwG0b6SPjZYhdNx11FLBDIFDAuNuCJj-U-i-LH3h7PrP72fMAfOq8UYfyMoZ7r6O9Mh0AboJ47zytkH9zz3eEDgWZbAexcvb1cckoG3oTdXF3doCqxEtkzQor0qX83peqqMlr9C6tXfcUkhpauQlQ35B9j1RRreNtU26bw-Dil3VdyKI1_SIT0huo/s2491/Scotland%20vs%20England.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1448" data-original-width="2491" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlFD6SwG0b6SPjZYhdNx11FLBDIFDAuNuCJj-U-i-LH3h7PrP72fMAfOq8UYfyMoZ7r6O9Mh0AboJ47zytkH9zz3eEDgWZbAexcvb1cckoG3oTdXF3doCqxEtkzQor0qX83peqqMlr9C6tXfcUkhpauQlQ35B9j1RRreNtU26bw-Dil3VdyKI1_SIT0huo/w640-h372/Scotland%20vs%20England.png" width="640" /></span></a></div><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The deal is NOT fully-funded - we can, and must, win more</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The deal is being sold to members as being ‘fully-funded’ but we are yet to see figures which show clearly that this is the case. Yes, our pressure has forced the Tories to divert some more money into teachers’ pay, but only enough to fund “the first 3% of the pay award”. Schools are being expected to fund the rest out of existing budgets. However, some won’t be able to without making further cuts. The Tories know that - which is why they’ve also announced a £40m ‘hardship fund’ for “schools facing specific financial difficulties as a result of this offer”. But that’s just a few hundred pounds each when divided up over thousands of schools.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Instead of making more cuts and attacking the most vulnerable - like Sunak’s announcement that he will be increasing the racist charges on migrants - the enormous wealth stashed away by the super-rich should be used to fund education, the NHS and all the other services needed by the children and families we support.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Tories say this is their “final offer” - but they said that before in March. They’ve been forced to shift again because our action has put them under massive pressure, especially with a General Election on the horizon. So now is the time to increase that pressure, not to agree an inadequate deal – we can win more!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Members should vote to REJECT the deal and join us in arguing at the National Executive and throughout the union for a bold, serious, escalating fight in the autumn! Ask us how at our ‘Zoom’ on Wednesday 19th July.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">NEU NEC members Sean McCauley, Sheila Caffrey, Louise Cuffaro, Nicky Downes, Steve Scott</span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-85622309403691510382023-06-26T05:01:00.007+01:002023-06-26T12:35:46.712+01:00Greece – 'New Democracy' wins outright majority<p>As expected, the second round of the Greek General Election has resulted in the main party of Greek capitalism, 'New Democracy', winning an outright majority. To the delight of capitalist commentators internationally, the result confirms that the ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis will continue in office as Greek PM without having to count on the votes of any coalition partner.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">June 2023 Greek General Election Results (held under different electoral legislation to May 2023):
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">New Democracy: 40.6% = 158 MPs (May 2023: 40.8% 146 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Syriza: 17.8% = 48 MPs (May 2023: 20.1% 71 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Pasok: 11.9% = 32 MPs (May 2023:11.5% 41 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">KKE: 7.7% = 20 MPs (May 2023: 7.2% 26 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Spartans: 4.6% = 12 MPs (May 2023: did not stand)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Hellenic Solution: 4.4% = 12 MPs (May 2023: 4.5% 16 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Niki: 3.7% = 10 MPs (May 2023: 2.9% 0 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Course of Freedom: 3.2% = 8 MPs (May 2023: 2.9% 0 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">MeRA25: 2.5% = 0 MPs (May 2023: 2.6% 0 MPs)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Other Parties 3.5%
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Turnout: 52.8% (May 2023: 61.1%)
</span></p><p>After New Democracy (ND) fell just short of an overall majority in May’s 'first round' of elections (see article <a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2023/05/greece-paying-price-of-betrayal.html" target="_blank">here</a> for analysis of the May result), Mitsotakis opted for an election rerun knowing that it would be held under different electoral legislation that gave additional ‘bonus’ seats to the winning party.
</p><p>The outcome of this ‘second round’ had already been widely seen as a foregone conclusion, the only questions being by how much ND would further increase their margin of victory over the Syriza opposition, and which of the smaller parties, from left and right, would make it over the 3% threshold required to have any MPs elected.
</p><p>Voter turnout fell to only a little over 50%, showing just how few Greek voters had faith in any of the politicians' promises after yet more weeks of election broadcasts and empty sloganeering. From those that did vote, there was no further swing towards Mitsotakis but the ex-left Syriza, who betrayed so many workers' hopes when in government, fared even worse than before. The once mighty Pasok failed to pick up many more votes at Syriza's expense, again polling at around 12%.
</p><p>However, having been let down by parties who claimed to be ‘socialist’, it’s no surprise that some disenchanted Greeks voted for the far-right. Nationalist ‘Hellenic Solution’ again won enough votes to be allocated MPs in Parliament, but they will also now be joined by the religious nationalist ‘Niki’ and by the ‘Spartans’, previously a largely unknown far-right group. The Spartans had been backed from prison by Ilias Kasidaris, a former leader of the neo-fascist ‘Golden Dawn’, after his own party had been excluded from the polls. Their success shows how such a ban, proposed by New Democracy and backed by Pasok MPs in the previous Parliament, ultimately ended up aiding the far-right by boosting their supposed ‘anti-establishment’ credentials. Greek workers and youth will need to mobilise to counter both the threat of the far-right and the policies of the ND government.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTso9h12UzaG_HRi-Kfl9dHBBrVPlLG0Jbu5XfJwQpnuzzj7LeZeQuYuMvn-Ngj_neywWPtca4CY99kBPKUpjjy9gzAnesVoDIS3IkVmvy6XtIXOSvuhcUC6GIpjUA4N68LJLjgERIGERi3L5kUzB-NYP3NYaIqWYh6PvNSXFyzg7kToNGRCzv3FSXhyy2/s2873/PXL_20230625_185326279.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1674" data-original-width="2873" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTso9h12UzaG_HRi-Kfl9dHBBrVPlLG0Jbu5XfJwQpnuzzj7LeZeQuYuMvn-Ngj_neywWPtca4CY99kBPKUpjjy9gzAnesVoDIS3IkVmvy6XtIXOSvuhcUC6GIpjUA4N68LJLjgERIGERi3L5kUzB-NYP3NYaIqWYh6PvNSXFyzg7kToNGRCzv3FSXhyy2/w400-h233/PXL_20230625_185326279.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>On the left, MeRA25, the party led by former Syriza Finance Minister Varoufakis again failed to exceed the 3% threshold, although another split from Syriza, ‘Course of Freedom’, led by Zoi Konstantopoulou, once the Speaker of the Greek Parliament under the Syriza government, just managed to do so.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-u0jHb6WOilt8T1m8daPtF5nRuiVC82921SGFOKFst7Nmy6ICtxBER4lqtfNTlh1ck_mw1UnM50ic1X2wNbBJib0yWLC-Y9mXTawppo3DOm8QfJwKTiE7UMZLYqrflRd5nj2YxNu5vgH1-BEOMoF6rwsymaPbr8tVHVszKJr5JIdCk4SKofXxF_k7tHj/s3230/PXL_20230626_065205742~2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3230" data-original-width="2423" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-u0jHb6WOilt8T1m8daPtF5nRuiVC82921SGFOKFst7Nmy6ICtxBER4lqtfNTlh1ck_mw1UnM50ic1X2wNbBJib0yWLC-Y9mXTawppo3DOm8QfJwKTiE7UMZLYqrflRd5nj2YxNu5vgH1-BEOMoF6rwsymaPbr8tVHVszKJr5JIdCk4SKofXxF_k7tHj/s320/PXL_20230626_065205742~2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>The KKE, the Greek Communist Party, if with just 20 MPs, will be the main left-wing voice in the Greek parliament. The KKE leader, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, actually came second behind Mitsotakis in a June 2023 opinion poll of party leaders' personal standings. Unlike Tsipras, who is now seen by many workers as just another politician who has abandoned his principles, Koutsoumpas comes across as a genuine voice opposing all the parties of capitalism. But neither have the KKE been able to attract mass support across the Greek working class so as to fill the vacuum left by the betrayals of both of the former left parties, Pasok and Syriza.
</p><p>As internationally, Greek workers will need to overcome the setbacks and betrayals of former left parties to build a new mass workers' party. If the Greek working-class can create a leadership ready to match its traditions of struggle then, with the global economy heading for crisis, the smugness of the Greek capitalist class at the re-election of its political representative, Mitsotakis, could yet be short-lived.</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-50933646633143207112023-06-18T12:28:00.021+01:002023-06-30T08:20:36.544+01:00Lenin, Rovelli, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism<p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Lenin, Rovelli, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism</span></u></b></p><p><b></b></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGfX-OwqH3ubk_5UsY_o1WzEsUh-mWQ0zlfmZ8Cxcy71GrgflZaTuPBujs4t8FJASVJqS0PQwOQCNXDdAwH2zEwztsBYwsykpLOb_zCa2aMrIOfOEix1IYD-7xK6JDsKT3vJDYbegGIhzBFiIS51Kmn0mHktdbD9N_OyXojKvxh0dgjPlZiQGLhuRSg/s4032/PXL_20230618_152305092.PORTRAIT.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="3013" data-original-width="4032" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGfX-OwqH3ubk_5UsY_o1WzEsUh-mWQ0zlfmZ8Cxcy71GrgflZaTuPBujs4t8FJASVJqS0PQwOQCNXDdAwH2zEwztsBYwsykpLOb_zCa2aMrIOfOEix1IYD-7xK6JDsKT3vJDYbegGIhzBFiIS51Kmn0mHktdbD9N_OyXojKvxh0dgjPlZiQGLhuRSg/w400-h299/PXL_20230618_152305092.PORTRAIT.jpg" width="400" /></a></b></div><p></p><p><u><b>Rovelli - a scientist in search of a philosophy</b></u></p><p>Through his articles and books, the Italian theoretical physicist and popular science writer, Carlo Rovelli, has done much to explain modern physics to the wider public. His bestselling paperback ‘Seven Brief Lessons on Physics’, outlining Einstein’s general theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and more besides, has sold over a million copies since it was first published in 2014.
</p><p>In his 2020 book, ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli decided to focus on his own specialism, quantum theory. The title refers to the name of the island in the North Sea where, in 1925, the young German physicist, Werner Heisenberg, initially conceived some of its key ideas. The first half of the book seeks to explain the mathematical analysis and experimental evidence on which the ‘quantum universe’ of modern physics - and its countless applications, from computers to nuclear energy - are based.
</p><p>But the universe as described by quantum theory turns out to be a very strange one. That’s why there is also no clear agreement amongst quantum theorists about exactly what ‘quantum reality’ looks like, as Rovelli describes in ‘Helgoland’. A number of different interpretations are outlined in his book, under the labels: ‘Many Worlds’, ‘Hidden Variables’, ‘Physical Collapse’, and ‘QBism’.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Quantum theory ... has destroyed the image of reality as made up of particles that move along defined trajectories - without, however, clarifying how we should think of the world instead. Its mathematics does not describe reality. Distant objects seem magically connected. Matter is replaced by ghostly waves of probability”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Introduction: ‘Looking into the Abyss’</span></p><p>‘Helgoland’ is Rovelli’s attempt to convince a non-specialist readership of the merits of the particular interpretation of quantum theory that he favours, namely ‘Relational Quantum Mechanics’ or ‘RQM’. The ‘<a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2279240-carlo-rovellis-rebellious-past-and-how-it-made-him-a-better-scientist/" target="_blank">New Scientist’ review</a> of ‘Helgoland” summarises RQM as the contention “<i>that you can go some way to clearing up quantum mysteries by accepting there is no such thing as things, only relations between things</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The properties of an object are the way in which it acts upon other objects; reality is this web of interactions. Instead of seeing the physical world as a collection of objects with definite properties, quantum theory invites us to see the physical world as a net of relations. Objects are its nodes.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter III: ‘Relations’
</span></p><p>An explanation of the universe that questions whether ‘things’ can really be seen as ‘things’, except when they are interacting with other objects, obviously raises some broader philosophical questions. Rovelli recognises this, explicitly referring to specific thinkers and their philosophies in ‘Helgoland’, particularly in its later chapters.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Helgoland is all about Rovelli’s attempt to explain perhaps the biggest mystery within quantum physics – what the nature of a reality can be in which, as the theory suggests mathematically at least, things are undefined until we measure them. ‘Is the moon there when nobody looks?’ is one way of expressing the obvious conundrum that arises from that (often attributed to Einstein)”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">New Scientist: ‘Carlo Rovelli’s rebellious past’, June 2021</span></p><p>Rovelli seeks support for his model of quantum reality from the writings of the Buddhist monk Nāgārjuna, from the twentieth century Austrian physicist Ernst Mach, and from the Russian intellectual Alexander Bogdanov, at one time a leading Bolshevik. He adds that the philosophy of Mach “<i>resonates with the ideas of Marx and Engels</i>”. However, he disagrees with Lenin’s philosophy of science, as set out in his book ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, writing that, in Rovelli’s view at least, Lenin was “<i>an extraordinary politician” </i>but<i> “no great philosopher”.
</i></p><p>As a socialist who has spent much of my life teaching physics, I should be grateful that Rovelli has brought Lenin’s writings to the attention of a wider audience. However, sadly Rovelli is also, in my opinion, another name to be added to the long list of writers who have unfairly maligned Lenin and misinterpreted his ideas. In order to correct Rovelli, I have therefore summarised below, in some detail, what I believe Lenin is actually putting forward in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’.
</p><p>As I hope that this summary will show, it’s no real surprise that Rovelli disagrees with Lenin. That’s because ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ is particularly critical of two of the writers that Rovelli has turned to for inspiration: Mach and Bogdanov.
</p><p>The similarities between their thinking and that of Rovelli also provides good reason to look again at Lenin’s criticisms to see what relevance they might have for today’s philosophical debates about RQM and other interpretations of quantum theory. Rovelli recognises this as well.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“His [Mach’s] most radical suggestion is to stop thinking of phenomena as manifestations of objects and to think, instead, of objects as nodes between phenomena”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’</span></p><p>Rovelli is able to quote some aspects of the thought of Nāgārjuna, Mach and Bogdanov which, in isolation, could certainly be taken as support for his particular interpretation of quantum theory. However, I think he takes those aspects out of their full original context and fails to sufficiently recognise that other aspects of the philosophies of these three individuals should be highly problematic for any scientist seeking to base their theories on a solid philosophical foundation.
</p><p>For example, Nāgārjuna, writing in the second century CE, believed that the mind was ‘immaterial’ and, as such, the objects we can perceive with our mind must be ultimately immaterial too. Is that any basis for modern science? The idea that Mach and Bogdanov’s philosophy had a sound basis in Marxism would also be disputed by most genuine Marxists. Indeed, the fact that it did not genuinely reflect a Marxist, ‘dialectical materialist’ outlook was one of the key points that Lenin was seeking to make in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’.
</p><p>However, to Rovelli’s credit, he is seeking answers, including amongst the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Rovelli recognises that philosophy is important. He correctly understands that how a person thinks more generally about the world will provide them with a foundation for the more specific conclusions that they will reach, whether in science or in politics.
</p><p>However, to me, Rovelli’s musings on philosophy are far less convincing than his scientific writing. In fact, they open him up to the counter-claim, aimed by Lenin in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ at the renowned physicist Poincaré, that Rovelli is ‘<i>an eminent physicist but a poor philosopher</i>”!
</p><p>However, before discussing philosophy in more detail, then, just as Rovelli does in ‘Helgoland’, it’s best to start with a quick review of the relevant science. Before looking at quantum theory in more detail, it’s useful to first summarise the contributions made to modern physics by Albert Einstein.
</p><p><b><u>Einstein sets out a revolution in physics
</u></b></p><p>In 1905, the then unknown Einstein had submitted four separate papers that each set out significant new advances in our understanding of physical reality. His first paper, on the ‘photoelectric effect’, showing that light consists of what became known as ‘photons’, formed the basis of quantum theory.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Einstein ... wrote, in the introduction to his article: ‘It seems to me that observations associated with blackbody radiation, fluorescence, the production of cathode rays by ultraviolet light, and other related phenomena connected with the emission or transformation of light are more readily understood if one assumes that the energy of light is discontinuously distributed in space.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">In accordance with the assumption to be considered here, the energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously distributed over an increasing space but consists of a finite number of “energy quanta” which are localised at points in space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and absorbed as complete units’.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">These simple and clear lines are the real birth certificate of quantum theory”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Seven Brief Lessons in Physics’, Second Lesson: ‘Quanta'</span></p><p>The second paper, on ‘Brownian Motion’, provided clear evidence for the physical existence of atoms. The third paper set out his ‘special theory of relativity’. This theory confirmed that our everyday ‘common sense’ understanding of space and time has to be adjusted in the ‘special case’ of objects moving at high relative velocities. The theory incorporated the mathematical formulas previously proposed by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz (still named today as the ‘Lorentz transformations’) that showed that moving objects contract in length in their direction of motion, but that this ‘length contraction’ effect is only noticeable when they are moving close to the speed of light.
</p><p>Einstein showed that another consequence of special relativity is ‘time dilation’ - that how quickly time passes is dependent on relative velocity as well (an odd idea, but one later confirmed by experiment). This led to physicists combining the three dimensions of space with the single dimension of time and making relativistic calculations in ‘four-dimensional spacetime’.
</p><p>Einstein’s special relativity also successfully resolved one of the main scientific debates of his time. Up until then, scientists had believed that the universe must be filled which an as yet undetected substance, the ‘ether’. This was needed to explain how light and radio waves were able to travel through otherwise empty space. Sensitive experimental apparatus, such as the ‘Michelson-Morley interferometer’, had been devised to see if the Earth’s relative motion through that ether could be detected. However, it had failed to do so. Special relativity was able to explain this ‘null result’ and, along with Einstein’s proposal of ‘quantised’ light [later to be known as ‘photons’], why the concept of an ‘ether’ was therefore unnecessary.
</p><p>His final paper, a supplement to the one on special relativity, showed how mass and energy could be considered as being one and the same entity – a concept known as ‘mass-energy equivalence’ – described mathematically through his now famous “E=mc^2” equation.
</p><p>In a short 2015 <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/general-theory-of-relativity-explained-the-beautiful-simplicity-and-weird-time-sags-of-einstein-s-100yearold-masterpiece-10494156.html" target="_blank">article in the ‘Independent</a>’, extracted from his ‘Seven Brief Lessons in Physics’, Rovelli explains how “<i>Einstein became a renowned scientist overnight and received offers of employment from various universities. But something disturbed him: despite its immediate acclaim, his theory of relativity did not fit with what we know about gravity – namely, with how things fall</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">"Newton had tried to explain why things fall and planets turn. He had imagined the existence of a ‘force’ which draws all material bodies towards one another, and called it ‘the force of gravity’. How this force was exerted between things distant from each other, without there being anything between them, was unknown ... Newton also imagined that bodies moved through space, and that space was a great empty container, a large box which enclosed the universe, an immense structure through which all objects ran true until a force obliged their trajectory to curve. What this ‘space’ was made of, this container of the world he invented, Newton could not say”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Seven Brief Lessons in Physics’, First Lesson: ‘The most beautiful of theories’</span></p><p>In 1915, Einstein published his answer - his general theory of relativity. Rovelli has rightly described Einstein’s general theory of relativity as “<i>a masterpiece of elegance and simplicity. It predicts incredible yet true facts: curvature of space-time, black holes, the Big Bang, and the expansion of the universe</i>”. [‘La fisica in tre puntate’].
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Space is no longer something distinct from matter, it is one of the ‘material' components of the world. An entity that undulates, flexes, curves, twists. We are not contained within an invisible, rigid infrastructure: we are immersed in a gigantic, flexible snail shell.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The sun bends space around itself, and the Earth does not turn around it because of a mysterious force but because it is racing directly in a space which inclines, like a marble that rolls in a funnel. There are no mysterious forces generated at the centre of the funnel; it is the curved nature of the walls which causes the marble to roll. Planets circle around the sun, and things fall, because space curves."
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Seven Brief Lessons in Physics’, First Lesson: ‘The most beautiful of theories’</span></p><p>
Einstein had tried to work out how Faraday and Maxwell’s work on electromagnetism - which proposed that light and radio waves were transferred via a space-filling ‘electromagnetic field’ - could be applied to gravitational forces. But, Rovelli explains, "<i>at this point ... an extraordinary idea occurred to him, a stroke of pure genius: the gravitational field is not diffused through space; the gravitational field is that space itself. This is the idea of the theory of general relativity. Newton's ‘space’, through which things move, and the ‘gravitational field’ are one and the same</i>” [‘Seven Brief Lessons in Physics’].
</p><p>General Relativity was soon tested in practice, and found to correctly predict how light rays from a distant star change course as they pass through the curved space around our Sun, just like the ball from an unlucky golf putt curves around the lip of a hole.
</p><p>The theory also explains why clocks that are positioned in a weaker part of a gravitational field appear to run faster than those where gravity is stronger. This, again, is not just theory, an adjustment has to be made in practice in order for GPS devices to work properly. This is because, as predicted by Einstein’s theories, clocks run slightly faster on the GPS satellites than on the Earth’s surface.
</p><p>General Relativity also made predictions about the universe as a whole which, once again, have been confirmed in practice. It predicted both the now well-evidenced existence of “black holes” as well as the fact that our universe should be expanding from a “Big Bang” – an idea that is also now backed up by a range of experimental observations.
</p><p><b><u>Quantum Theory
</u></b></p><p>Alongside General Relativity, the second main pillar of today’s theoretical physics is ‘quantum theory’. In summary, this is the idea that, observed at close quarters, the world around us is ‘granular’, rather than ‘continuous’.
</p><p>In ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli tells the story of how these ideas arose. Their origins start with observations that suggested that some physical quantities, such as the energy and frequency of the ‘black body radiation’ emitted by a hot oven, could only take certain fixed values. The spectrum of emitted radiation could only be fully explained if its energy was being transmitted in discrete packets or ‘quanta’.
</p><p>As early as 1900, the German physicist Max Planck proposed that the energy of each quantum (or, nowadays, ‘photon’) was proportional to the frequency of the radiation. As described above, Einstein’s first 1905 paper extended this idea to explain why the electric current generated by the ‘photoelectric effect’ depended on both the frequency and the intensity of light shone onto a metal.
</p><p>In 1924, the French theorist, Louis de Broglie, went further and suggested that all particles could be treated as being waves as well – a concept known as ‘wave particle duality’. Experiments showing that a beam of electrons could be diffracted - like a beam of light - confirmed that electrons could indeed behave as both a particle (with a particular energy) and as a wave (with a corresponding frequency).
</p><p>A different strand of the development of quantum theory had begun with the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. In 1911, Bohr had been invited to England to work with other physicists researching the structure of atoms, including the New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford. In that year Rutherford had proposed his ‘nuclear model’ of the atom. This was based on his analysis of the results of Geiger and Marsden's 'alpha-particle scattering experiments’ which had showed that the atom’s positive charge must be concentrated in a small central 'nucleus'.
</p><p>Bohr returned to Denmark, concentrating on developing a model of the atom where the negative electrons orbited around the positive central nucleus. Bohr was not the first to suggest such a ‘planetary model’ of the atom but Rovelli explains that he was the first to propose: “<i>that the electrons in atoms orbited around the nucleus only on certain precise orbits, at certain precise distances from the nucleus, with certain precise energies - before magically ‘leaping' from one orbit to another. The first quantum leaps</i>” [‘Helgoland’].
</p><p>By proposing these ‘quantised’ orbits, where only certain fixed energies were allowed, Bohr’s model successfully explained the different colours of light emitted by chemical elements when they were heated. But why only these energy levels? This was the problem that Heisenberg, invited by Bohr to be part of his research team in Copenhagen, was determined to resolve.
</p><p>Thinking through the problem while on Helgoland in 1925, Heisenberg came up with mathematical formulas based on ‘matrices’ – tables of numbers that corresponded to the various ‘quantum leaps’ observed in the emission spectrum of the simplest element, hydrogen. After some initial frustration, the ‘matrix mechanics’ started to produce meaningful outcomes.
</p><p>Rovelli writes [in ‘Helgoland’] that: Heisenberg “<i>sends a copy of his results to his friend [Wolfgang] Pauli, with the comment that 'everything is still vague and unclear to me, but it seems that electrons no longer move in orbits'</i>.” History shows that Heisenberg had indeed drafted the foundation of today’s quantum mechanics, including modern chemistry’s atomic model where electrons are located somewhere within a range of differently shaped ‘atomic orbitals’ instead of defined ‘orbits’.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“When the first terms seemed to come right, I became excited, making one mathematical error after another. As a consequence, it was around three o'clock in the morning when the result of my calculations lay before me. It was correct in all terms. Suddenly I no longer had any doubts about the consistency of the new 'quantum' mechanics that my calculation described.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">At first, I was deeply alarmed. I had the feeling that I had gone beyond the surface of things and was beginning to see a strangely beautiful interior, and felt dizzy at the thought that now I had to investigate this wealth of mathematical structures that Nature had so generously spread out before me”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Werner Heisenberg quoted by Carlo Rovelli in ‘Helgoland’</span></p><p>Rovelli continues: “<i>Heisenberg tries to get Pauli involved, but Pauli is unconvinced: it all seems to him like a mathematical game, far too abstract and abstruse</i>”. However, despite his initial scepticism, Pauli then applied his skills to the complexity of matrix mathematics and helped Heisenberg to perfect his quantum mechanical model of the hydrogen atom.
</p><p>However, those mathematical models began to get even more ‘abstruse’ when the Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, started to combine the ideas of Heisenberg and his co-thinkers with those of de Broglie. This led Schrödinger to propose the key concept of the ‘wave function’.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Schrödinger is captivated by the idea that the trajectories of elementary particles are also approximations of the behaviour of an underlying wave ... In naming his wave, Schrödinger uses the Greek letter psi ... also called the ‘wave function’ ... His fabulous calculation seems to show clearly that the microscopic world is not made up of particles: it is made up of psi waves”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Misleading Psi of Erwin Schrödinger: Probability’</span></p><p>But how can Schrödinger’s wave functions provide a real model of reality? After all, when an electron is detected, it isn’t spread out like a wave would be, but observed as an actual particle with a small but measurable mass. Rovelli explains that the solution proposed by quantum physicists to resolve this paradox was to say that the size of the wave function at any point gives you the probability of finding the corresponding particle there. So, based on this interpretation, quantum theory proposes a sub-atomic world where probabilities replace the precise predictions of ‘classical’ physics.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The value of Schrödinger's psi wave at a point in space is related to the probability of observing the electron at this point. If an atom emits an electron and is surrounded by particle detectors, the value of psi where there is a detector determines the probability of that detector and not another detecting the electron”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Misleading Psi of Erwin Schrödinger: Probability’</span></p><p>But that’s not all. Heisenberg’s mathematical models also generated his famous ‘uncertainty principle’ which asserts that our knowledge of the fine details of the universe will always be imprecise. It basically states (avoiding using mathematical notation) that if you measure the position of an object precisely, then there will inevitably be a limit as to how precisely you can then also measure its speed (or to be more accurate, its ‘momentum’).
</p><p>In everyday life, the objects we interact with are too big for this uncertainty to be an issue but, when considering tiny sub-atomic particles, the ‘uncertainty principle’ says that’s no longer the case. The defined ‘cause-and-effect’ of classical physics is replaced by a quantum physics which is essentially indeterministic.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“When we observe the world at our scale we do not see its granularity. ... With many variables, fluctuations become irrelevant, and probability nears certainty. Billions of discontinuous events of the agitated and fluctuating quantum world are reduced by us to the few continuous and well-defined variables of our everyday experience.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">At our scale, the world is like the wave-agitated surface of the ocean seen from the moon: the smooth surface of a blue marble ... but at the molecular scale, the cutting edge of a sharp knife is as fluctuating and imprecise as the edge of an ocean in a storm, fraying upon the white sand of its shore”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter IV: ‘Information’
</span></p><p>
</p><p>However, like Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics has turned out to be more than just a quirky mathematical model of the subatomic world. The theory has been tested in practice and applied successfully in many different ways.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“With his consent, Bohr is kidnapped in a British commando raid and taken out of occupied Denmark. He is taken to England and ... then to the United States, where his knowledge is put to work with the generation of young physicists who have learned how to use the new quantum theory to manipulate atoms. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are annihilated.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Thankfully, there is much more than weapons. Quantum theory has been applied to atoms, atomic nuclei, elementary particles, the physics of chemical bonds, the physics of solid materials, of liquid and gas, semiconductors, lasers, the physics of stars such as the Sun, neutron stars, the primordial universe, the physics of the formation of galaxies. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> ... Quantum theory has allowed us to understand whole areas of nature, from the form of the periodic table of elements to medical applications that have saved millions of lives. It has predicted new phenomena never previously imagined: quantum correlations over a distance of kilometres, quantum computers, [quantum] teleportation ... all predictions have turned out to be correct.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Absurd Idea of the Young Heisenberg: Observables’</span></p><p><b><u>
Probability and Observation – Quantum Physics and Philosophy
</u></b></p><p>So quantum theory had certainly helped to explain phenomena that were unable to be explained by earlier ‘classical’ physics. But it doesn’t explain the nature of the universe itself.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Schrödinger's psi is ... not a representation of a real entity: it is an instrument of calculation that gives the probability that something real will occur. It is like the weather forecasts telling us what could happen tomorrow ... Quantum theory, just as much in Heisenberg's version as in Schrödinger's, predicts probability, and not certainty”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Misleading Psi of Erwin Schrödinger: Probability’</span></p><p>
Some scientists, such as Einstein and Schrödinger, wanted to go further. They wanted science to be able to explain the nature of the reality that existed behind the wave functions. But Niels Bohr's philosophy was very different. In his article in the 1963 ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’, a colleague of Bohr, Aage Petersen, wrote that: “<i>When asked whether the algorism [arithmetic] of quantum mechanics could be considered as somehow mirroring an underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, ‘There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.’</i> ”
</p><p>So Bohr, who set the philosophical tone for the way quantum theory should be interpreted, ruled out any idea that science should – or even could – try to describe the nature of actual reality underlying quantum theory. For Bohr, all that mattered was that the theory was able to explain what scientists were able to observe through experimental investigation. Beyond that, Bohr insisted, physics could go no further. After all, wave functions themselves were unobservable mathematical constructs.
</p><p>In ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli notes that Bohr’s outlook was influenced by the ‘positivist’ philosophy of Ernst Mach, Pauli’s godfather, who “<i>insisted that knowledge had to be based solely on observations, freed of any ‘metaphysical’ assumption’</i> ”. (Lenin’s criticisms of Mach's views, as set out in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, are discussed below).
</p><p>Bohr’s philosophy became the generally accepted understanding of how quantum theory operated, part of what became known as the ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’. Under this interpretation, until we observe an object, it isn’t possible to describe the exact path any particle takes, but only to describe its wave function. As Heisenberg put it, “<i>the path comes into existence when we observe it (Die ‘Bahn’ entsteht erst dadurch, dass wir sie beobachten)</i>”.
</p><p>In other words, it’s the act of observation that triggers a collapse of the probabilistic wave function which had been previously spread out in space. Only then does it become the particle we observe, situated in one particular position.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Schrödinger's psi wave is definitely not sufficient to clarify the obscurity of the quanta. It is not enough to think of the electron as a wave. The psi wave is something unclear, which determines the probability that the electron will be observed in one place rather than in another. It evolves in time according to the equation written by Schrödinger, <i>as long as we do not look at it</i>. When we look at it, pttf!, it disappears, concentrated into a point, and we see the particle there”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Misleading Psi of Erwin Schrödinger: Probability’</span></p><p>
Such a ‘subjective’ outlook on reality inevitably raises important philosophical questions. For example, as “<a href="https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/physics/copenhagen_interpretation.html" target="_blank">the information philosopher</a>” [a useful website although one that has its own particular ‘information philosophy’ outlook] puts it “<i>Does the collapse only occur when an observer ‘looks at’ the system?</i>” Or even, as the nuclear physicist Eugene Wigner effectively claimed, “<i>Does the mind of the observer have causal power over the physical world?</i>”.
</p><p>The same source makes clear that most physicists would argue against the idea that such a ‘conscious observer’, a being with a thinking mind, is required to ‘collapse the wave function’. They would argue that what’s required is some kind of interaction with another system, but that certainly doesn’t need to be an observation made by a conscious human being. But, nevertheless, in the language of philosophy, according to the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ at least, “<i>physics required a <u>subjective</u> view [which is therefore] unable to reach the <u>objective</u> nature of the ‘things in themselves’</i>.”
</p><p>The ‘thing-in-itself’, a term introduced into philosophy by Immanuel Kant, refers to actual objective reality, independent of our subjective interpretation and observation of the world. It is a term that Marx and Engels would have been familiar with and, as discussed below, is referred to by Lenin in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’.
</p><p>Heisenberg doesn’t use the term explicitly in his explanation of the ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ but does make clear that he agrees that quantum physics inevitably has a “<i>subjective element</i>” since “<i>what we observe is not nature in itself </i>[i.e. ‘the thing-in-itself’] <i>but nature exposed to our method of questioning</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“This again emphasises a subjective element in the description of atomic events, since the measuring device has been constructed by the observer, and we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer from experiment by the means that are at our disposal”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Werner Heisenberg, ‘The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics’, 1955.</span></p><p>Perhaps the best known example of the apparently ‘subjective’ nature of the world, as revealed by quantum theory, are the strange results provided by so-called ‘<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01938-6" target="_blank">double slit experiments</a>’. These had always been a staple part of any ‘classical physics’ course explaining the behaviour of waves. The ‘crests’ and ‘troughs’ of light waves emerging through two thin slits combine with each other to form a characteristic ‘interference pattern’ of dark and bright bands on a screen positioned beyond those slits.
</p><p>But quantum physicists wondered whether the same behaviour could be demonstrated with a wave function. In particular, if the wave function of, say, a photon or electron was similarly passed through two slits, would the two separated wavelets ‘interfere’ with themselves and form the same kind of fringe pattern? At first, the idea was just a ‘thought experiment’ used to discuss the implications of quantum theory but, once the sensitive experimental apparatus required had been developed, it became possible to test theory in practice.
</p><p>In ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli describes the results of one version of such an experiment, using photons from laser beams. Just as you would expect if the wave function indeed behaves like a wave, when the laser is split into two separate paths and then recombined, ‘interference’ occurs. However, ( and this takes some thinking about! ), if you use a detector to try and measure which of the two paths the photon has actually taken, the interference disappears!
</p><p>The “information philosopher” website (which also includes some useful explanatory animations) gives this explanation of the reason for the observed interference: “<i>The particle always goes through a single slit. A particle cannot be divided and in two places at the same time. It is the wave function that interferes with itself</i>”.
</p><p>However, it adds an important rider pointing to the ‘mystery’ yet to be solved by quantum theorists and philosophers alike: “<i>The two-slit experiment also demonstrates the inherent probabilistic element in quantum mechanics ... This is the deepest metaphysical mystery ... . How can an abstract probability wave influence the particle paths to show interference when large numbers of particles are collected?</i>”
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Each photon passes (entire) on the left, or (entire) on the right. Each photon behaves as if it passed through both trajectories, as waves do (otherwise there would be no interference), but if we look to see where the photon is, we always see it on just one path ... The very act of measuring which path the photon takes causes the interference to disappear! ... If you observe where a photon passes, its psi wave jumps entirely on to a path ... there is no longer interference. The wave function ‘collapses’ .... converging in one point, the moment we observe it”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter II: ‘Superpositions’</span></p><p><b><u>
Einstein and Schrödinger question Bohr’s philosophy
</u></b></p><p>Albert Einstein’s early work on both statistics and the photoelectric effect had helped to launch quantum theory. Erwin Schrödinger’s work on wave functions was key to its description of the quantum universe. Yet both scientists, although from different perspectives, were far from convinced by the interpretation that Bohr, Heisenberg and his co-thinkers had reached. Both believed that science should seek to describe the nature of underlying reality, not argue that it was impossible to do so.
</p><p>Schrödinger opposed the way that Bohr and others had decided that the wave functions he had devised should be interpreted as describing just probabilities. He came up with his well-known ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ paradox as a ‘thought experiment’ designed to discredit their approach. The details of the paradox, and the detailed reasoning that different theorists provide to resolve it, would fill many pages. However, in brief, Schrödinger argued that a probabilistic interpretation of wave functions would allow a nonsensical situation to exist where a cat could be, rather like the two paths potentially taken by photons in a two-slit experiment, both ‘dead’ and ‘alive’ at the same time. (Rovelli's ‘RQM’ has its own solution to the paradox, which I will return to later).
</p><p>In order to expose what he also saw as flaws in the ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’, Einstein came up with a series of rather more sophisticated ‘thought experiments’. As Rovelli explains in ‘Helgoland’, these formed part of “<i>a famous debate ... between Einstein and Bohr [that] went on for years through personal encounters, conferences, written works, letters ...</i> .”
</p><p>The details of those debates can be read about in greater detail on a range of websites but some of Einstein’s own argumentation can be read online in his 1949 “<a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/works/1940s/reply.htm" target="_blank">Reply to Criticisms</a>”. In this article, Einstein argues that the correctness of Heisenberg’s ‘uncertainty principle’ doesn’t mean that scientists have to accept that only an uncertain, indeterministic model of reality can ever be constructed. Furthermore, he doesn’t accept that the probabilistic model put forward under the ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ offers a “<i>theoretically complete description</i>” of the universe.
</p><p> In short, Einstein recognised quantum theory as a step forward in scientific understanding but one that was still far from complete. It provided a statistical, probabilistic model that could explain the behaviour, on average, of a collection of particles but could not yet describe the behaviour or nature of individual particles. Einstein viewed quantum mechanics as a theory that, for now, was simply the best science could do - but, in future, it needed to do better.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“My highly esteemed colleagues Born, Pauli, Heitler, Bohr, and Margenau ... are all firmly convinced that the riddle of the double nature of all corpuscles (corpuscular [particle-like] and undulatory [wave-like] character) has in essence found its final solution in the statistical quantum theory. On the strength of the successes of this theory they consider it proved that a theoretically complete description of a system can, in essence, involve only statistical assertions concerning the measurable quantities of this system. They are apparently all of the opinion that Heisenberg’s indeterminacy-relation (the correctness of which is, from my own point of view, rightfully regarded as finally demonstrated) is essentially prejudicial in favour of the character of all thinkable reasonable physical theories in the mentioned sense. In what follows I wish to adduce reasons which keep me from falling in line with the opinion of almost all contemporary theoretical physicists”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“I am, in fact, firmly convinced that the essentially statistical character of contemporary quantum theory is solely to be ascribed to the fact that this [theory] operates with an incomplete description of physical systems ... Within the framework of statistical quantum theory there is no such thing as a complete description of the individual system”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Albert Einstein, ‘Reply to Criticisms’, 1949.</span></p><p>A useful summary (although scientifically technical in parts) of Einstein’s scientific arguments with Bohr can be read on <a href="https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/quantum_theory_completeness/index.html#L667" target="_blank">John D. Norton’s web page</a> “Einstein on the Completeness of Quantum Theory”. Norton explains how subsequent experiments have shown that Einstein got some of his arguments wrong (in particular, his objections relating to the strange quantum phenomenon of ‘entanglement’). On the other hand, Norton also points out the lack of clarity in some of Bohr’s opaque argumentation, the understanding of which, as Einstein witheringly put it, “<i>I have been unable to achieve despite much effort which I have expended on it</i>” (!).
</p><p>So, while some of the details of Einstein’s objections have been answered by subsequent evidence, his concerns should not be lightly dismissed. It’s worth noting that Norton, a Professor of History and Philosophy of Science in the United States, agrees that the lack of clarity about the ‘measurement problem’ - that is the lack of agreement on how, or whether, ‘wave function collapse’ actually occurs in reality - means that “<i>there is something quite unresolved in the foundations of quantum theory</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“In my view, [Einstein] was not wrong to resist the foundational accounts that surrounded quantum theory in his final decades. He was quite right to protest that no account of the quantum domain could so glibly give up the notion of reality as they did. All was not well then in our accounts of the quantum domain; and all is not well now. The clearest indication of the trouble is the persistence of the measurement problem. It shows us that there is something quite unresolved in the foundations of quantum theory”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">John D. Norton on the ‘Einstein-Bohr Debate’</span></p><p>As for Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’ summarises the debate between Einstein and Bohr with an exchange that reputedly took place between the two scientists: “<i>Einstein put the question colourfully ... despite his declared atheism ... ‘Does God play dice?’ [meaning] literally ‘Are the laws of Nature really not deterministic?’ ... Bohr responded by admonishing him to ‘Stop telling God what to do.’ Which means: Nature is richer than our metaphysical prejudices. It has more imagination than we do</i>’ ”.
</p><p>Rovelli’s writings suggest that he would take Bohr’s side of the argument. In other words, Rovelli seems to agree that, if you insist that there is a fully objective reality to the universe around us, you are asserting a prejudiced “<i>metaphysical</i>” philosophical outlook. Einstein’s writings make clear that this accusation of “<i>metaphysical prejudice</i>” was, indeed, exactly the one levelled at him by his opponents. As we shall see below, the same charge was also being levelled at Marxists in Lenin’s time too!
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“What does not satisfy me in [quantum] theory, from the standpoint of principle, is its attitude towards that which appears to me to be the programmatic aim of all physics: the complete description of any (individual) real situation (as it supposedly exists irrespective of any act of observation or substantiation). Whenever the positivistically inclined modern physicist hears such a formulation his reaction is that of a pitying smile. He says to himself: ‘there we have the naked formulation of a metaphysical prejudice, empty of content, a prejudice, moreover, the conquest of which constitutes the major epistemological achievement of physicists within the last quarter-century. Has any man ever perceived a ‘real physical situation’? ”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Albert Einstein, ‘Reply to Criticisms’, 1949.</span></p><p>
This is the philosophical context in which Rovelli’s criticisms of Lenin’s book ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ must be read.
</p><p><b><u>Rovelli reads - but disagrees with - Lenin
</u></b></p><p>Lenin’s book had been written before Bohr debated with Einstein, and certainly well before Rovelli expressed his own philosophical views. However, Lenin’s writings show that, while scientific knowledge and theories may have since advanced, essentially the same clash of philosophical ideas was taking place back in 1909. This was the year when ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ was published, setting out Lenin’s analysis of the varying philosophical trends underlying the scientific literature on theoretical physics available to him that time.
</p><p>Lenin’s book takes particular aim at what was, at the time, the fashionable philosophy of ‘Empirio-Criticism’. This was a way of thinking that had been set out by Ernst Mach and then adapted by Aleksandr Bogdanov under the label of ‘Empirio-Monism’.
</p><p>Rovelli, in his search for past ideas that might help inform today’s debates on the nature of ‘quantum reality’, also recognises that “<i>the issues debated by Lenin and Bogdanov have returned in contemporary philosophy</i>.” He is impressed that Lenin should be so well versed in science and philosophy, but disagrees with Lenin’s conclusions.
</p><p>He argues that Lenin was wrong to attack the ideas of Mach and Bogdanov, and claims that Lenin wrongly accuses them of being ‘idealists’. [In the philosophical sense of the word, explained by Rovelli in ‘Helgoland’ as follows: “<i>An idealist, for Lenin, negates the existence of a real world beyond the spirit and reduces reality to the content of consciousness</i>”].
</p><p>He defends Mach and Bogdanov against such criticism, countering that Lenin held an overly simplistic and outdated view of ‘materialism’, one that insisted that the nature of reality had to be “matter in motion”. Rovelli indicates that he broadly supports their philosophy and believes that their ideas help to explain the conclusions reached by Bohr, Heisenberg and other quantum theorists.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Lenin’s critique of Mach and Bogdanov’s reply interests us here. Not because Lenin is Lenin, but because his criticism is the natural reaction to the ideas that led to quantum theory. ... Precisely the issues debated by Lenin and Bogdanov have returned in contemporary philosophy. Their discussion provides a key for understanding the revolutionary significance of quanta. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Whatever we think about communism, there is no denying that Lenin was an extraordinary politician. His knowledge of philosophy and science is also impressive; if today we elected politicians as cultivated as Lenin, perhaps they would be more effective. But Lenin was no great philosopher. The influence of his philosophical thought is due more to his long dominance of the political scene and his elevation to heroic status under Stalin than to the profundity of his arguments. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">For Lenin, the only acceptable version of materialism is the idea that 'there is nothing in the world except matter in motion in space and in time’ and that we can arrive at ‘certain truths’ through knowledge of matter”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’</span></p><p>Rovelli also writes in favour of Bogdanov’s political philosophy against that of Lenin, supporting Bogdanov's criticisms of Lenin’s alleged ideological and political ‘dogmatism’. Rovelli also refers supportively to Bogdanov’s leading role in developing the idea of ‘proletarian culture’, a political outlook that was criticised by both Lenin and Trotsky.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Even more impressive is Bogdanov’s <i>political</i> reply to Lenin. Lenin speaks of absolute certainties. He presents the historical materialism of Marx and Engels as if it were timelessly valid. Bogdanov points out that this ideological dogmatism not only fails to accord with the dynamic of scientific thought, it also leads to calcified political dogmatism.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The Russian Revolution, Bogdanov argues in the turbulent years of its aftermath, had created a new economic structure. If, as Marx suggested, culture is influenced by economic structure, then post-revolutionary society would be able to produce a new culture that could no longer be the orthodox Marxism conceived before the Revolution. Brilliant. Bogdanov's political programme was to leave power and culture to the people, to nurture the new, collective, generous culture opened up by the revolutionary dream. Lenin's political programme, instead, was to reinforce the revolutionary avant-garde, the repository of truth that needed to guide the people. ...</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Bogdanov predicts that Lenin’s dogmatism will seal the Russian Revolution into a block of ice; prevent it from evolving further; suffocate the life out of all that had been gained through it; render it sclerotic. These, too, were prophetic words”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’</span></p><p>Socialists with an understanding of the actual developments of the Russian Revolution might well quickly conclude that Rovelli may have a good understanding of quantum mechanics but not such a good grasp of Marxism. Instead of analysing the history of Bolshevism objectively, it is Rovelli that has allowed his ‘prejudices’ to affect his conclusions. He clearly does not appreciate why the idea of ‘proletarian culture’ was mistaken, as summarised in the quoted <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1923/art/tia23c.htm" target="_blank">article by Trotsky</a>, nor has he understood the gulf that separated Lenin’s thought from the falsified version of it that emerged through Stalinism.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Here is a recent example, one of a hundred, where a slovenly, uncritical and dangerous use of the term ‘proletarian culture’ is made. ‘The economic basis and its corresponding system of superstructures,’ writes Sizoy, ‘form the cultural characteristics of an epoch (feudal, bourgeois or proletarian).’ Thus the epoch of proletarian culture is placed here on the same plane as that of the bourgeois. But that which is here called the proletarian epoch is only a brief transition from one social-cultural system to another, from capitalism to socialism. ... The length of this period depends entirely upon the success of the revolution. Is it not amazing that one can forget this and place the proletarian cultural epoch on the same plane with that of feudal and bourgeois culture?”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“As the new regime will be more and more protected from political and military surprises and as the conditions for cultural creation will become more favourable, the proletariat will be more and more dissolved into a socialist community and will free itself from its class characteristics and thus cease to be a proletariat. In other words, there can be no question of the creation of a new culture, that is, of construction on a large historic scale ... there is no proletarian culture and that there never will be any and in fact there is no reason to regret this. The proletariat acquires power for the purpose of doing away forever with class culture and to make way for human culture. We frequently seem to forget this”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Leon Trotsky, ‘What Is Proletarian Culture, and Is It Possible?’, 1923.</span></p><p>However, as Rovelli undoubtedly knows his physics, ‘Helgoland’ clearly raises an interesting question about how well Lenin’s 1909 writings on science have stood the test of time in the light of today’s scientific knowledge. More significantly, since any scientific writing from this period is inevitably going to be dated, does Rovelli’s criticism of Lenin’s overall philosophical outlook – and his support for Mach and Bogdanov’s – really help inform today’s scientific understanding of the nature of matter, time and space?
</p><p><b><u>Lenin’s critique of ‘Empirio-Criticism’
</u></b></p><p>Lenin’s book, polemical in style, is not a particularly easy read. It was written in opposition to the philosophical claims of Mach, Bogdanov, and similar ‘Empirio-Criticists’. However, Bogdanov was, at the time, also a Bolshevik. So, by implication, since a person’s philosophical outlook also conditions their political outlook, the book was aimed at opposing Bogdanov’s political programme too.
</p><p>It was being written at a time when, following the defeat of the 1905 Russian Revolution, Lenin saw the need to patiently rebuild the revolutionary workers’ movement. He was strongly opposed to Bogdanov’s faction of ‘Otzovists’ (or ‘Recallists’) who supported a mistaken ‘ultra-left’ strategy. The Otzovists argued against participation in the limited ‘legal’ avenues then open to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, in particular demanding the RSDLP representatives withdrew from the State Duma (Parliament).
</p><p>However, it would be wrong to see ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ as being chiefly a couched political attack on Bogdanov. It is, first and foremost, a carefully researched document based on nine months of detailed study of the latest scientific literature of the time.
</p><p>The book is necessarily commenting on the scientific debates, and using the scientific language, of that particular historical period. Moreover, many of the specifics of those debates can now be hard to follow as we no longer use the scientific models that were current at that time. For example, Lenin refers to the ‘ether’, then generally accepted by physicists as a medium filling all space, required to allow light and other electromagnetic waves to travel. This had proved a useful concept at the time, and Maxwell’s ground-breaking electromagnetic equations were based on it. However, as discussed above, subsequent experimental evidence and Einstein’s alternative theoretical explanations rendered this concept redundant.
</p><p>Lenin’s preparatory research was carried out in 1908. Rutherford would only propose his nuclear model of the atom in 1911; Einstein would not publish his paper on general relativity until 1915; Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrödinger would not develop quantum mechanics until the 1920s. So, although the book mentions physicists whose names are still associated with currently accepted physics, such as Helmholtz, Boltzmann, Thomson, Lorentz, Maxwell - and Mach himself - the context in which these scientists were then developing their theories was not the same as it would be under currently accepted physics. Lenin’s scientific conclusions also have to be read in this historical context.
</p><p>Unfortunately, as with so much of Lenin’s writings, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ was subject to exactly such misreading by the Stalinist writers who falsely claimed to be following genuine Marxist ideas. Phrases within it were taken as showing that Lenin would have opposed both general relativity and quantum theory.
</p><p>As one well-informed <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/GRASAP-9" target="_blank">study of science in the Soviet Union</a> explains, this dogmatic Stalinist falsification of science became particularly prevalent “<i>in the late forties and early fifties ... from third-rate scientists who tried to win Stalin's favour</i>”. These “<i>unprincipled careerists</i>” included not only the notorious Lysenko (in the field of genetics) but also physicists like Maksimov. Supposedly in the name of ‘Marxism-Leninism’, Maksimov not only opposed ‘reactionary Einsteinism’ but even rejected the simplest concepts of relativity that had been universally accepted since the time of Galileo! As I will try to explain below, any such false conclusions can only be arrived through a total misinterpretation of Lenin’s methods and of Marxist dialectical materialism.
</p><p>Lenin also clarified some of his philosophical views in later years, although, with more pressing revolutionary events having to be prioritised (!), never in the same detail as in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’. I make a reference below to a note Lenin made in his personal “Philosophical Notebooks” which usefully expands on a point that Lenin had made in his earlier book.
</p><p>With those warnings noted, then I believe that ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ still has much to offer in terms of the philosophical approach that Marxists should apply to objective reality – and to today’s scientists seeking to clarify the exact nature of that reality. I also think it shows Rovelli’s criticisms to be misplaced.
</p><p><b><u>What is reality? - Materialism vs. Idealism
</u></b></p><p>If there is one clear thread running through Lenin’s book, it is his insistence that there are two distinct but contrasting trends in philosophy – materialism and idealism.
</p><p>Lenin explains that, as human beings, we of course find out about the world around us through our senses – on that both an idealist and materialist would agree. But Lenin argues that a materialist believes that our senses give us an ‘image’, if not always a perfect one, of a real objective world that exists around us. An idealist outlook believes that thoughts and sensations are primary, that they are the only ‘reality’ we perceive, rather than (as is understood by a materialist outlook) there being a real world that continues to exist around us, whether or not we are sensing it.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“All knowledge comes from experience, from sensation, from perception. That is true. But the question arises, does objective reality “belong to perception,” i.e., is it the source of perception? If you answer yes, you are a materialist”. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Idealist philosophy ... regards sensation as being not the connection between consciousness and the external world, but a fence, a wall, separating consciousness from the external world - not an image of the external phenomenon corresponding to the sensation, but as the ‘sole entity.’”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter One: ‘1. Sensations & Complexes of Sensations’</span></p><p>In short, quoting the philosopher Feuerbach, Lenin describes a materialist outlook as recognising that “<i>my sensation is subjective, but its foundation is objective</i>”. And Lenin is adamant that such a fundamental philosophical divide - between materialism and idealism – can’t be written off as a distinction that has suddenly lost its relevance.
</p><p>Lenin demands absolute consistency on this question, on accepting “<i>the objective content of experience, the objective truth of experimental knowledge</i>”. He believes that anyone who is ‘agnostic’ on the issue will inevitably fall into the idealist error of ‘solipsism’ - the belief that nothing outside your own mind can be certain to exist.
</p><p>Lenin puts Mach and Bogdanov into this ‘agnostic’ category. He would certainly have also added Niels Bohr, with his philosophy that “<i>it is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is</i>”, too.
</p><p>He adds that the ‘agnostics’ accuse materialists of being ‘metaphysicians’ for insisting on the existence of an objective reality. This charge of having a non-scientific ‘metaphysical’ outlook is one that Rovelli also levels at Lenin – and it is an accusation that Einstein faced too.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“[The agnostics] call us, the materialists, ‘metaphysicians’ because we recognise objective reality which is given us in experience, because we recognise an objective source of our sensations independent of man. ... The agnostic says: I do not know if there is an objective reality which is reflected, imaged by our sensations; I declare there is no way of knowing this. Hence the denial of objective truth by the agnostic, and the tolerance - the philistine, cowardly tolerance - of the dogmas regarding sprites, hobgoblins, Catholic saints, and the like. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Matter is a philosophical category denoting the objective reality which is given to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed and reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them. Therefore, to say that such a concept can become ‘antiquated’ is childish talk, a senseless repetition of the arguments of fashionable reactionary philosophy. Could the struggle between materialism and idealism, the struggle between the tendencies or lines of Plato and Democritus in philosophy, the struggle between religion and science, the denial of objective truth and its assertion, the struggle between the adherents of super-sensible knowledge and its adversaries have become antiquated during the two thousand years of the development of philosophy?”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’</span></p><p><b><u>Mach – trying to find a middle ground
</u></b></p><p>Rovelli’s claim that Lenin accuses Mach – and, in turn, Bogdanov – of being ‘idealists' isn’t quite correct. His actual accusation is they try and have it both ways, claiming that their approach finds a better ‘middle ground’ between “one-sided” idealism and materialism when, in fact, it just ends up creating confusion, camouflaged by clever-sounding ‘new’ terminology.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“It would, indeed, be childish to think that one can dispose of the fundamental philosophical trends by inventing a new word. Either the ‘element’ is a sensation, as all empirio-criticists, Mach etc., maintain - in which case your philosophy, gentlemen, is idealism vainly seeking to hide the nakedness of its solipsism under the cloak of a more ‘objective’ terminology; or the ‘element’ is not a sensation - in which case absolutely no thought whatever is attached to the ‘new’ term; it is merely an empty bauble. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">[The Machians] combine fundamental idealist premises with individual materialist deductions for the very reason that their theory is an example of that ‘pauper’s broth of eclecticism’ of which Engels speaks with just contempt [in Engels’ foreword to ‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy’].
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter One: ‘2. The Discovery of the World-Elements’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Both the solipsist, that is, the subjective idealist, and the materialist may regard sensations as the source of our knowledge. ... The first premise of the theory of knowledge undoubtedly is that the sole source of our knowledge is sensation. Having recognised the first premise, Mach confuses the second important premise, i.e., regarding the objective reality that is given to man in his sensations, or that forms the source of man’s sensations. Starting from sensations, one may follow the line of subjectivism, which leads to solipsism (‘bodies are complexes or combinations of sensations’), or the line of objectivism, which leads to materialism (sensations are images of objects, of the external world).”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“For the first point of view, i.e., agnosticism, or, pushed a little further, subjective idealism, there can be no objective truth. For the second point of view, i.e., materialism, the recognition of objective truth is essential. This old philosophical question of the two trends, or rather, of the two possible deductions from the premises of empiricism and sensationalism, is not solved by Mach, it is not eliminated or overcome by him, but is muddled by verbal trickery with the word ‘element,’ and the like.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’</span></p><p>
To illustrate his point, Lenin discusses a concept that will be familiar to anyone who has studied even just a little school physics: what produces the ‘colour’ of an object? Lenin summarises (using the scientific terminology current at that time) how light rays of different wavelengths are detected by the retina, producing our sensation of colour.
</p><p>The explanation would seem to be straightforward enough scientifically - but Lenin warns that Mach's ‘Empirio-Criticist’ philosophy, with its convoluted terminology about “<i>elements</i>”, including reference to colour being both a “<i>physical object</i>” and a “<i>psychological object</i>”, confuses matters, fudging the question as to whether it accepts the existence of an external objective reality or not.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“All natural science can only picture and represent complexes of those elements which we ordinarily call sensations. It is a matter of the connection of these elements. ... The connection of A (heat) with B (flame) is a problem of physics, that of A and N (nerves) a problem of physiology. Neither exists separately; both exist in conjunction. Only temporarily can we neglect either. Even processes that are apparently purely mechanical, are thus always physiological.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Ernst Mach, ‘Mechanics’, 1883.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“A colour is a physical object as soon as we consider its dependence, for instance, upon its luminous source, upon other colours, upon temperatures, upon spaces, and so forth. When we consider, however, its dependence upon the retina, it is a psychological object, a sensation.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Ernst Mach, ‘Analysis of Sensations’, 1890.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Mach, quoted by Lenin in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter One: ‘2. The Discovery of the World-Elements’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Light rays, falling upon the retina, produce the sensation of colour. This means that outside us, independently of us and of our minds, there exists a movement of matter, let us say of ether waves of a definite length and of a definite velocity, which, acting upon the retina, produce in man the sensation of a particular colour. This is precisely how natural science regards it. It explains the sensations of various colours by the various lengths of light-waves existing outside the human retina, outside man and independently of him.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">This is materialism: matter acting upon our sense-organs produces sensation. Sensation depends on the brain, nerves, retina, etc., i.e., on matter organised in a definite way. The existence of matter does not depend on sensation. Matter is primary. Sensation, thought, consciousness are the supreme product of matter organised in a particular way. Such are the views of materialism in general, and of Marx and Engels in particular”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin’s response to Mach in the same chapter of ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’</span></p><p>Lenin also argues that Mach’s confused philosophy is the source of Bogdanov’s philosophical – and perhaps political – confusion as well. He compares their misguided attempt to find a philosophical middle ground to the misguided attempt to do the same in politics.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“ ‘Of all parties’ our [German Marxist] Joseph Dietzgen justly said, ‘the middle party is the most repulsive. . . . Just as parties in politics are more and more becoming divided into two camps . . . so science too is being divided into two general classes: metaphysicians [idealists] on the one hand, and physicists, or materialists, on the other. The intermediate elements and conciliatory quacks, with their various appellations - spiritualists, sensationalists, realists, etc., etc. - fall into the current on their way. We aim at definiteness and clarity. ... If we compare the two parties respectively to solid and liquid, between them there is a mush.’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">True! The ‘realists,’ etc., including the ‘positivists,’ the Machians, etc., are all a wretched mush; they are a contemptible middle party in philosophy, who confuse the materialist and idealist trends on every question. The attempt to escape these two basic trends in philosophy is nothing but ‘conciliatory quackery’.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Six: ‘4. Parties in Philosophy and Philosophical Blockheads’</span></p><p>Lenin emphasises that his approach is exactly that of Marx and Engels as well. But Lenin points out that this isn’t just the philosophy of Marxism, such a materialist outlook is also how science - or, at least, most scientists - view the world as well.
</p><p style="text-align: left;">Lenin quotes the views of the Austrian physicist, Ludwig Boltzmann [whose name is still remembered in the ‘Boltzmann constant’ of modern physics], similarly opposing those, like Mach (and perhaps now Rovelli?!), who argue that “<i>only sense-impressions are given us, and, therefore, it is said, we have no right to go a step beyond </i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Anybody who reads [Engels’ books] Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach with the slightest care will find scores of instances when Engels speaks of things and their reflections in the human brain, in our consciousness, thought, etc. Engels does not say that sensations or ideas are ‘symbols’ of things, for consistent materialism must here use ‘image,’ picture, or reflection instead of ‘symbol,’ ... But the question here is not of this or that formulation of materialism, but of the opposition of materialism to idealism, of the difference between the two fundamental lines in philosophy. Are we to proceed from things to sensation and thought? Or are we to proceed from thought and sensation to things?
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The first line, i.e., the materialist line, is adopted by Engels. The second line, i.e., the idealist line, is adopted by Mach. No evasions ... can remove the clear and indisputable fact that Ernst Mach’s doctrine that things are complexes of sensations is subjective idealism. ... If bodies are ‘complexes of sensations,’ as Mach says ... it inevitably follows that the whole world is but my idea. Starting from such a premise it is impossible to arrive at the existence of other people besides oneself: it is the purest solipsism.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter One: ‘1. Sensations and Complexes of Sensations’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Writing against people who ‘have been carried away by the new epistemological dogmas,’ Boltzmann says: ‘Mistrust of conceptions which we can derive only from immediate sense-impressions has led to an extreme which is the direct opposite of former naïve belief. Only sense-impressions are given us, and, therefore, it is said, we have no right to go a step beyond. But to be consistent, one must further ask: are our sense-impressions of yesterday also given? What is immediately given is only the one sense-impression, or only the one thought, namely, the one we are thinking at the present moment. Hence, to be consistent, one would have to deny not only the existence of other people outside one’s self, but also all conceptions we ever had in the past.’ ... This physicist rightly ridicules the supposedly ‘new’ ‘phenomenalist’ view of Mach and Co. as the old absurdity of philosophical subjective idealism”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter One: ‘6. The Solipsism of Mach and Avenarius’</span></p><p><b><u>Rovelli and Mach
</u></b></p><p>Before continuing with an analysis of Lenin’s writings, it might be useful to review in a bit more detail what Rovelli has to say about Mach’s philosophy. In ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli summarises his understanding of Mach’s thinking and what he sees as “<i>the appeal of this philosophical position</i>.”
</p><p>In Rovelli’s view, “<i>Mach does not think, of course, that there is nothing outside our mind. On the contrary, he is interested precisely in what is outside our minds (whatever the ‘mind’ is): nature, in all its complexity, of which we are a part. Nature presents itself as a set of phenomena, and Mach recommends the study of those phenomena in order to build syntheses and conceptual structures that make sense of them, rather than to postulate a priori underlying realities</i>”.
</p><p>However, I think Lenin would see Rovelli’s claim as an example of Machian “<i>mush</i>”, and that it’s the kind of thinking that troubled Boltzmann too. Reality exists but we shouldn’t “<i>go a step beyond</i>” and postulate about what that underlying reality consists of?
</p><p>Rovelli goes into more detail into what he thinks constitutes Mach’s philosophy, writing that “<i>For Mach, there is no distinction between the physical and the mental world ... Knowledge is divested of any ahistorical element, of every aspiration towards the absolute, or pretence of certainty ... This perspective, historical and concrete, resonates with the ideas of Marx and Engels</i>”.
</p><p>As explained below, in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ Lenin refutes a similar claim to Marxist authenticity for such ideas, in reply to Bogdanov. Rovelli writes that Mach makes “no distinction between the physical and the mental world”. But Marxism does, and science need to do so as well.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Mach does not see knowledge as a question of deducing or intuiting a hypothetical reality beyond sensations, but as the search for an efficient organisation of our way of thinking these sensations. The world that interests us, for Mach, is constituted by sensations. Any firm assumption about what lies 'behind' those sensations is suspect as being a form of 'metaphysics'.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The notion of 'sensation' is ambiguous in Mach. This is both his weakness and his strength: Mach takes the concept of sensation from physiology but makes it serve as a universal notion independent from the psychological sphere. He uses the term 'elements' (in a sense similar to dhamma in Buddhist philosophy). 'Elements' are not just the sensations that a human being or an animal experiences. They are any phenomena that manifest themselves in the universe. The 'elements' are not independent: they are tied by relations, what Mach calls 'functions', and these are what science studies. Though imprecise, Mach's philosophy is a real natural philosophy that replaces the mechanism of matter that moves in space with a general set of elements and functions.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The appeal of this philosophical position is that it eliminates every firm hypothesis concerning a reality that exists behind appearances, but also every hypothesis on the reality of the subject who experiences. For Mach, there is no distinction between the physical and the mental world: 'sensation' is equally physical and mental. It is real. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The idea of a material reality behind phenomena disappears; the idea of a spirit that 'knows' disappears. Knowledge is possessed, for Mach, not by the abstract 'subject' of idealism: it is instead the concrete human activity, in the concrete course of history, that learns to better and better organize the facts of the world with which it interacts.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">This perspective, historical and concrete, resonates with the ideas of Marx and Engels, for whom knowledge is part of a concrete human history. Knowledge is divested of any ahistorical element, of every aspiration towards the absolute, or pretence of certainty; it is located instead in the actual biological, historical and cultural evolution of mankind on our planet”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’</span></p><p>Rovelli certainly believes that a Machian approach benefits scientific thinking. In the first chapter of ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli stresses how Heisenberg had been influenced by “<i>the discussions on the relation between reality and experience that ran through Austrian and German philosophy at the beginning of the century. Ernst Mach, who had exerted a decisive influence on Einstein, insisted that knowledge had to be based solely on observations, freed of any implicit ‘metaphysical’ assumption</i>.”
</p><p>It’s certainly seems true that Heisenberg was inspired to ‘think outside the box’ by the Machian philosophy that science should only consider known ‘observables’ and not any other prior assumptions about the nature of reality. However, as the section on Einstein above indicates, Rovelli would be wrong to imply that Einstein shared the same philosophical outlook.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Mach argues that the progress of science shows that this notion of 'matter' is an unjustified 'metaphysical' assumption: a model that was useful for a time, but from which we need to learn how to move on, so that it does not become a metaphysical prejudice. Science must be freed from all metaphysical assumptions: knowledge should be based, that is, only upon what is 'observable'.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Let's change ... our way of thinking about the electron. Let's give up describing its movement. Let's describe only what we can observe: the light it emits. Let's base everything on quantities that are observable. This is the idea”. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Absurd Idea of the Young Heisenberg: Observables’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“To Heisenberg's obscure idea that the theory only describes observations, and not what happens between one observation and another, we must add the idea that the theory predicts only the probability of observing one thing or another”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter I: ‘The Misleading Psi of Erwin Schrödinger: Probability’</span></p><p>Einstein certainly acknowledged that he had taken inspiration from some of Mach’s scientific writings that stressed the importance of considering motion relative to other bodies. However, far from wishing to free himself from the supposedly “<i>metaphysical assumption</i>” of objective reality, Einstein was critical of Heisenberg and Bohr for restricting themselves only to ‘observables’.
</p><p>Einstein did not adopt a Machian outlook philosophically. Instead, as made clear in the 1949 article quoted above, Einstein believed that “the<i> programmatic aim of all physics [was] the complete description of any (individual) real situation (as it supposedly exists irrespective of any act of observation)</i>”.
</p><p>Perhaps correcting any false impression that Rovelli might have created by writing that Mach “<i>had exerted a decisive influence on Einstein</i>”, in a later chapter, referencing the Einstein Bohr debates, Rovelli writes that “<i>Einstein was resistant to the idea of relinquishing a more realistic image of phenomena. Bohr defended the conceptual novelty of the theory</i>.” In the accompanying footnote Rovelli also acknowledges that, rather than taking Einstein’s perspective, “<i>I follow more in the footsteps of Bohr and Heisenberg</i>”. In case that was in any doubt!
</p><p>Unfortunately, Rovelli is inconsistent in his writing on Mach. Elsewhere in ‘Helgoland’, Rovelli reverts to describing Mach as being “<i>the source of philosophical inspiration for both Einstein and Heisenberg</i>”.
</p><p>Rovelli is also inconsistent in his support for Mach’s philosophy. In a later chapter of ‘Helgoland’, apparently in response to reading the American writer Erik C. Banks, he writes that “<i>the attempt by Mach to take 'sensations' or 'elements' as foundational has inspired scientists and philosophers, but in the end does not seem any more convincing than others. Mach rails against metaphysics, but he effectively produces his own metaphysics - lighter and more flexible, but a metaphysics nonetheless of elements and functions. A phenomenal realism, or a 'realist empiricism'.</i>”
</p><p>So Rovelli seems to be unclear about what he thinks himself about Mach’s philosophy, one that he himself describes as being “<i>imprecise</i>” and “<i>ambiguous</i>”. Nevertheless, given his largely positive account of Machian thought, it’s not surprising that Rovelli is so vociferously opposed to his critic, Lenin.
</p><p>Lenin, as we have seen, was forthright in his opposition to Mach’s ‘Empirio-Criticism’, and insisted that Marxists “<i>aim at definiteness and clarity</i>”. And, as we shall now see, Lenin was similarly firm in his opposition to the other ‘Machian’ that Rovelli writes approvingly of, Bogdanov, who had claimed to have developed his own philosophical framework, ‘Empirio-Monism”.
</p><p><b><u>Bogdanov's ‘Empirio-Monism’
</u></b></p><p>As Lenin explains, Bogdanov, writing in 1906, claimed to have a different approach to Mach. But Lenin retorts that his ‘Empirio-Monism’ is founded on exactly the same lack of “<i>distinction between the physical and the mental world</i>”. Just as with Mach, Lenin believed that “<i>what appeared to Bogdanov to be truth is, as a matter of fact, confusion, a wavering between materialism and idealism</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Bogdanov, arguing against Plekhanov in 1906 wrote: ‘I cannot own myself a Machian in philosophy. In the general philosophical conception there is only one thing I borrowed from Mach—the idea of the neutrality of the elements of experience in relation to the ‘physical’ and ‘psychical’ and the dependence of these characteristics solely on the <i>connection</i> of experience. [Empirio-Monism]’ ... This is as though a religious man were to say - I cannot own myself a believer in religion, for there is ‘only one thing’ I have borrowed from the believers - the belief in God. This ‘only one thing’ which Bogdanov borrowed from Mach is the <i>basic error</i> of Machism, the basic falsity of its entire philosophy.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Those deviations of Bogdanov’s from empirio-criticism to which he himself attaches great significance are in fact of entirely secondary importance and amount to nothing more than inconsiderable private and individual differences between the various empirio-criticists ... How Bogdanov developed, improved or worsened Machism is not important. What is important is that he has abandoned the materialist standpoint and has thereby inevitably condemned himself to confusion and idealist aberrations. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">What appeared to Bogdanov to be truth is, as a matter of fact, confusion, a wavering between materialism and idealism”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter One: ‘2. The Discovery of the World-Elements’</span></p><p>Bogdanov sought to add a new angle to Mach’s thought by introducing the notion that objectivity in human models of physical reality comes about when individual ideas become ‘collectively’ accepted as “<i>socially organised experience</i>”.
</p><p>Rovelli summarises this with the following quote from Bogdanov’s ‘Empirio-Monism’: “<i>The difference between the psychological and physical orders boils down to the difference between experience organized individually and experience organized socially</i>.” [‘Helgoland’, Chapter Vll, ‘But is It Really Possible?’]. But Lenin counters that this is still fundamentally an idealist outlook, because “<i>the physical world exists independently of humanity and of human experience, [it] existed at a time when no ‘sociality’ and no ‘organisation’ of human experience was possible</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“ ‘The basis of objectivity,’ we read in Book I of Empirio-Monism, ‘must lie in the sphere of collective experience. We term those data of experience objective which have the same vital meaning for us and for other people, those data upon which not only we construct our activities without contradiction, but upon which, we are convinced, other people must also base themselves in order to avoid contradiction. The objective character of the physical world consists in the fact that it exists not for me personally, but for everybody ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The objectivity of the physical bodies we encounter in our experience is in the last analysis established by the mutual verification and coordination of the utterances of various people. In general, the physical world is socially-co-ordinated, socially-harmonised, in a word, <i>socially-organised experience</i>’.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">This is a fundamentally untrue, idealist definition, ... the physical world exists independently of humanity and of human experience, [it] existed at a time when no ‘sociality’ and no ‘organisation’ of human experience was possible”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’</span></p><p>Lenin also warns that defining ‘objectivity’ as being based on “<i>socially o</i><i>rganised experience</i>” allows religious doctrines to be seen as being equally ‘objective’. After all, “<i>Catholicism has been ‘socially organised, harmonised and co-ordinated’ by centuries of development</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> “If truth is only an organising form of human experience, then the teachings, say, of Catholicism are also true. ... Catholicism has been ‘socially organised, harmonised and co-ordinated’ by centuries of development ... If this undoubtedly universally significant and undoubtedly highly-organised religious social experience does ‘not harmonise’ with the ‘experience’ of science, it is because there is a radical and fundamental difference between the two, which Bogdanov obliterated when he rejected objective truth. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Contemporary fideism [religious faith] does not at all reject science; all it rejects is the ‘exaggerated claims’ of science, to wit, its claim to objective truth. If objective truth exists (as the materialists think), if natural science, reflecting the outer world in human ‘experience,’ is alone capable of giving us objective truth, then all fideism is absolutely refuted.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">But if there is no objective truth, if truth (including scientific truth) is only an organising form of human experience, then this in itself is an admission of the fundamental premise of clericalism, the door is thrown open for it, and a place is cleared for the ‘organising forms’ of religious experience”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’</span></p><p>Lenin adds that Bogdanov believes that his theory of ‘Empirio-Monism’ updates and “develops” Marxism as follows [the emphasis is taken from Bogdanov’s original text]: “<i>In their struggle for existence men can unite only with the help of consciousness: without consciousness there can be no intercourse. Hence, </i>social life in all its manifestations is a consciously psychical life<i>. ... Society is inseparable from consciousness. <u>Social being and social consciousness are, in the exact meaning of these terms, identical</u></i>”. [Chapter Six: ‘2. How Bogdanov Corrects and “Develops” Marx’]
</p><p>But Lenin counters that this is not a Marxist position, making a point that is still very relevant for socialists taking into account today of the gap that exists between objective conditions and working-class consciousness: “<i>Social consciousness reflects social being - that is Marx’s teaching. A reflection may be an approximately true copy of the reflected, but to speak of identity is absurd ... people in their intercourse are <u>not conscious</u> of what kind of social relations are being formed</i>.”
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“‘Social being’ and ‘social consciousness’ are not identical, just as being in general and consciousness in general are not identical. From the fact that in their intercourse men act as conscious beings, it <i>does not follow</i> that social consciousness is identical with social being. In all social formations of any complexity - and in the capitalist social formation in particular - people in their intercourse are <i>not conscious</i> of what kind of social relations are being formed, in accordance with what laws they develop, etc. For instance, a peasant when he sells his grain enters into “intercourse” with the world producers of grain in the world market, but he is not conscious of it; nor is he conscious of the kind of social relations that are formed on the basis of exchange. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Social consciousness reflects social being - that is Marx’s teaching. A reflection may be an approximately true copy of the reflected, but to speak of identity is absurd. ... Bogdanov’s attempt to correct and develop Marx ... is an obvious distortion of this <i>materialist</i> basis in the spirit of <i>idealism</i> ... of the identity of consciousness and being. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Bogdanov personally is a sworn enemy of reaction in general and of bourgeois reaction in particular. [However,] Bogdanov’s ... theory of the ‘identity of social being and social consciousness’ serve this reaction. It is sad, but true”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Six: ‘2. How Bogdanov Corrects and “Develops” Marx’</span></p><p>Lenin, in the same chapter quoted above, then draws together the political and philosophical points: “<i>Materialism in general recognises objectively real being (matter) as independent of consciousness, sensation, experience, etc., of humanity. Historical materialism recognises social being as independent of the social consciousness of humanity. In both cases consciousness is only the reflection of being, at best an approximately true ... reflection of it. From this Marxist philosophy, which is cast from a single piece of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, without departing from objective truth, without falling a prey to a bourgeois-reactionary falsehood</i>”.
</p><p>Lenin warns that Bogdanov’s philosophy is “<i>disguised in Marxist terminology and decked out in Marxist words. ‘Socially organised experience,’ ‘collective labour process,’ and so forth are Marxist words, but they are <u>only words</u>, concealing an idealist philosophy that declares things to be complexes of ‘elements,’ of sensations, the external world to be ‘experience,’ or an ‘empirio-symbol’ of mankind, physical nature to be a ‘product’ of the ‘psychical,’ and so on and so forth</i>”. [Chapter Six: ‘2. How Bogdanov Corrects and “Develops” Marx’]
</p><p>Is Bogdanov’s ‘Empirio-Monism’ really a firm philosophical basis for modern physics? Personally, I think not. Is it accurate to say it ‘updates’ Marxism? Again, I think not - and nor does Lenin!
</p><p><b><u>Does Objective Truth Exist?
</u></b></p><p>As I set out above, Rovelli is opposed to what he sees as Lenin’s ‘dogmatism’, complaining that “<i>Lenin presents the historical materialism of Marx and Engels as if it were timelessly valid</i>” ... in a way that “<i>fails to accord with the dynamic of scientific thought</i>”. But Lenin has already responded to these kind of accusations in advance – in the pages of ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’.
</p><p>A similar criticism was raised by Bogdanov in his ‘Empirio-Monism’ when he wrote that “<i>as I understand it, Marxism contains a denial of the unconditional objectivity of any truth whatsoever, the denial of all eternal truths”</i> and declares that he recognises “<i>objective truth only within the limits of a given epoch. ... The criterion of objective truth ... does not exist - truth is an ideological form, an organising form of human experience</i>”. But Lenin points out the “<i>absurdity</i>” of such a claim, for if ‘truth’ is determined by human thought, then “<i>there can be no truth independent of humanity</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“If truth is only an ideological form, then there can be no truth independent of the subject, of humanity, for neither Bogdanov nor we know any other ideology but human ideology. And ... if truth is a form of human experience, then there can be no truth independent of humanity; there can be no objective truth. ... Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is agnosticism and subjectivism.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">... Natural science leaves no room for doubt that its assertion that the earth existed prior to man is a truth. The assertion ... is an objective truth. This proposition of natural science is incompatible with the philosophy of the Machians and with their doctrine of truth: if truth is an organising form of human experience, then the assertion that the earth exists outside human experience cannot be true”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’</span></p><p>To present things fairly, it must be added that Rovelli, in line with most quantum theorists, doesn’t believe in any requirement for observations to be ‘human’ interactions. As he states in ‘Helgoland‘, quantum theory “<i>describes how every physical object manifests itself to any other physical object</i>”. However, his professed support for Bogdanov betrays another inconsistency in Rovelli’s thinking.
</p><p>Both Bogdanov and Rovelli seem muddled on the actual views of Marxism, in particular, on how it explains the difference between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ truth, and on how our understanding of the nature of objective reality is tested and modified over time through ‘practice’.
</p><p>Lenin quotes Engels explaining how, unlike the ‘Kantian agnostics’, Marxists believe that the nature of underlying reality, the ‘things-in-themselves’, can be revealed, as our knowledge becomes, in Lenin’s words below, “more complete”. Quantum theory may be revealing the nature of that reality to be more complex than we previously realised, but, nevertheless, it forms an objective reality.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves ... then there is an end to the Kantian incomprehensible ‘thing-in-itself.’ ... The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained just such ‘things-in-themselves’ until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, where upon the ‘thing-in-itself’ became a ‘thing for us,’ as, for instance, alizarin, the colouring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow in the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, quoting Engels from ‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy’</span></p><p>Lenin expands further on these points in a section which I have quoted at some length below:
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“What is the kernel of Engels’ objections? Yesterday we did not know that coal tar contained alizarin. Today we learned that it does. The question is, did coal tar contain alizarin yesterday? Of course it did. To doubt it would be to make a mockery of modern science. And if that is so, three important epistemological conclusions follow:
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">1) Things exist independently of our consciousness, independently of our perceptions, outside of us, for it is beyond doubt that alizarin existed in coal tar yesterday and it is equally beyond doubt that yesterday we knew nothing of the existence of this alizarin and received no sensations from it.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">2) There is definitely no difference in principle between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, and there can be no such difference. The only difference is between what is known and what is not yet known. And philosophical inventions of specific boundaries between the one and the other, inventions to the effect that the thing-in-itself is ‘beyond’ phenomena (Kant), or that we can and must fence ourselves off by some philosophical partition from the problem of a world which in one part or another is still unknown but which exists outside us (Hume) - all this is the sheerest nonsense.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">3) In the theory of knowledge, as in every other branch of science, we must think dialectically, that is, we must not regard our knowledge as ready-made and unalterable, but must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and more exact.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Once we accept the point of view that human knowledge develops from ignorance, we shall find millions of examples of it just as simple as the discovery of alizarin in coal tar, millions of observations not only in the history of science and technology but in the everyday life of each and every one of us that illustrate the transformation of “things-in-themselves” into “things-for-us,” ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The sole and unavoidable deduction to be made from this - a deduction which all of us make in everyday practice and which materialism deliberately places at the foundation of its epistemology - is that outside us, and independently of us, there exist objects, things, bodies and that our perceptions are images of the external world. Mach’s converse theory (that bodies are complexes of sensations) is nothing but pitiful idealist nonsense”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘1. The “Thing-in-Itself” ’</span></p><p>But Lenin knows that idealist critics of Marxist materialism will demand to know “<i>what proof have you that the human mind gives you an objective truth?</i>” He gives Marx and Engels’ replies.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Marx naturally encounters the objections of the critics. He has admitted the existence of things-in-themselves, of which our theory is the human translation; he cannot evade the usual objection: what assurance have you of the accuracy of the translation? What proof have you that the human mind gives you an objective truth? To this objection Marx replies in his second Thesis” [on Feuerbach] : ‘The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory, but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the ‘this-sidedness’ of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘1. The “Thing-in-Itself” ’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The proof of the pudding is in the eating. From the moment we turn to our own use these objects, according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our sense-perceptions. If these perceptions have been wrong, then our estimate of the use to which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail. But if we succeed in accomplishing our aim, if we find that the object does agree with our idea of it, and does answer the purpose we intended it for, then that is positive proof that our perceptions of it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside ourselves. ...</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, quoting Engels’ Introduction to the English edition of ‘Socialism: Utopian and Scientific’</span></p><p>However, Lenin adds an important caveat to the idea that perhaps ‘practice makes perfect’. He points out that it can never “<i>confirm or refute any human idea completely</i>”. In doing so, he answers Rovelli’s (and Bogdanov’s) accusation in advance that “<i>Lenin speaks of absolute certainties</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Of course, we must not forget that the criterion of practice can never, in the nature of things, either confirm or refute any human idea completely. This criterion also is sufficiently “indefinite” not to allow human knowledge to become “absolute,” but at the same time it is sufficiently definite to wage a ruthless fight on all varieties of idealism and agnosticism”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘6. The Criterion of Practice’</span></p><p><b><u>Absolute and Relative Truth
</u></b></p><p>Rovelli is perhaps making the same errors that led Lenin to charge Bogdanov of being in a “<i>complete muddle</i>” over these issues. Lenin put this down to Bogdanov’s “<i>failure to understand the relation of absolute truth to relative truth </i>”.
</p><p>Rovelli writes that Lenin is “<i>forgetting one of the essential lessons of Marx and Engels: history is process, knowledge is process. Scientific knowledge grows, writes Bogdanov, and the notion of matter proper to the science of our time may turn out to be only an intermediate stage on the path of our knowledge. Reality may be much more complex than the naïve materialism of eighteenth-century physics</i>”. [‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’]
</p><p>But where is Rovelli’s evidence for this accusation? Since the time of Marx, Engels and Lenin, new experimental findings have of course meant that our models of the nature of reality have had to change. But none of these three would have had any difficulty at all in accepting that. Anyone arguing otherwise misunderstands Marxism.
</p><p>What Lenin – and Marxism in general – does not accept is the idea, which Machians like Bogdanov proposed, that “<i>the relativity of our knowledge excludes even the least admission of absolute truth</i>”. As Lenin explains, “<i>for Engels, absolute truth is compounded from relative truths. Bogdanov is a relativist; Engels is a dialectician</i>”. [‘M & E-C’: Chapter Two: ‘5. Absolute and Relative Truth’]
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Human thought ... is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths. Each step in the development of science adds new grains to the sum of absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposition are relative, now expanding, now shrinking with the growth of knowledge ... ‘Absolute truth ... can be seen, heard, smelt, touched and, of course, also be known, but it is not entirely absorbed into knowledge’ ”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘5. Absolute and Relative Truth’</span></p><p>
Lenin knows that this distinction between relative and absolute truth will be too ‘<i>indefinite</i>’ for some of his critics to accept. But Lenin replies as follows: “<i>It is sufficiently ‘indefinite’ to prevent science from becoming a dogma</i>”. This is part of a longer reply (copied below) to Bogdanov’s accusation that Lenin failed to recognise the ‘historically conditional nature’ of knowledge. In it, Lenin also responds to the accusation that Marxist political and ideological thought is ‘dogmatic’ too.
</p><p>This passage also answers Rovelli’s false accusation that Marxist thought resists change in scientific thought. No, it welcomes every scientific advance as another step towards a full picture of the nature of objective reality in which we exist.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“For dialectical materialism there is no impassable boundary between relative and absolute truth. Bogdanov entirely failed to grasp this if he could write: ‘It [the world outlook of the old materialism] sets itself up as the absolute <i>objective knowledge of the essence of things</i> and is incompatible with the historically conditional nature of all ideologies’ (Empirio-monism). From the standpoint of modern materialism i.e., Marxism, the <i>limits</i> of approximation of our knowledge to objective, absolute truth are historically conditional, but the existence of such truth is <i>unconditional</i>, and the fact that we are approaching nearer to it is also unconditional. The contours of the picture are historically conditional, but the fact that this picture depicts an objectively existing model is unconditional”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> When and under what circumstances we reached, in our knowledge of the essential nature of things, the discovery of alizarin in coal tar or the discovery of electrons in the atom is historically conditional; but that every such discovery is an advance of ‘absolutely objective knowledge’ is unconditional. In a word, every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, for instance, from religious ideology) there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">You will say that this distinction between. relative and absolute truth is indefinite. And I shall reply: it is sufficiently ‘indefinite’ to prevent science from becoming a dogma in the bad sense of the term, from becoming something dead, frozen, ossified; but at the same time it is sufficiently ‘definite’ to enable us to dissociate ourselves. in the most emphatic and irrevocable manner from fideism and agnosticism, from philosophical idealism and the sophistry of the followers of Hume and Kant. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The materialist dialectics of Marx and Engels certainly does contain relativism, but is not reducible to relativism, that is, it recognises the relativity of all our knowledge, not in the sense of denying objective truth, but in the sense that the limits of approximation of our knowledge to this truth are historically conditional.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘5. Absolute and Relative Truth’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">”Bogdanov is prepared to recognise Marx’s theory of the circulation of money as an objective truth only for ‘our time’, and calls it ‘dogmatism’ to attribute to this theory a ‘super-historically objective’ truth. This is again a muddle. The correspondence of this theory to practice cannot be altered by any future circumstances ... But inasmuch as the criterion of practice, i.e., the course of development of all capitalist countries in the last few decades, proves only the objective truth of Marx’s whole social and economic theory in general, and not merely of one or other of its parts, formulations, etc., it is clear that to talk of the ‘dogmatism’ of the Marxists is to make an unpardonable concession to bourgeois economics. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The sole conclusion to be drawn from the opinion of the Marxists that Marx’s theory is an objective truth is that by following the path of Marxist theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following any other path we shall arrive at nothing but confusion and lies.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘6. The Criterion of Practice’</span></p><p><b><u>‘Relativism’ and ‘Relativity’</u></b></p><p>In re-reading Lenin’s reasoning in the context of today’s scientific knowledge, it’s important to draw a distinction between the scientific theory of ‘relativity’ and the philosophical outlook of ‘relativism”. Lenin is not discussing the scientific understanding that phenomena can appear differently depending on your frame of reference, nor about relativistic effects such as the ‘bending’ of light by gravity (after all, Einstein hadn’t yet written his paper on General Relativity and it wasn’t experimentally confirmed by Eddington until 1919). Lenin is instead referring to “relativism”, the idea that there is no ‘absolute truth’ and that different models of the world can be equally valid.
</p><p>The history of science shows that, particularly at a time when commonly held scientific models are being challenged, more than one scientific model may indeed seem to offer as much validity as another. For example, when Copernicus first put forward a ‘sun-centred’ model of the universe, experimental observations of planetary movement could probably be as equally well explained by previous ‘Ptolemaic earth-centred’ models. Copernicus, Kepler and their followers were probably as equally swayed by other influences such as ‘occult’ beliefs in the power of the Sun! However, additional observations and scientific theories showed that one model provided a better explanation of reality than the previously held model.
</p><p>Indeed, the development of relativity theory confirms the dialectical approach to the development of knowledge outlined by Lenin above. It was becoming clear that classical Newtonian mechanics only gave an accurate picture of the world around us within certain limits. Beyond these limits, a new, more refined, model of reality was required. Einstein’s theories provided the basis of that new model. Newtonian physics could no longer be seen as giving equally valid explanations of reality.
</p><p>But Mach had a different philosophy. Lenin compares Engels’ insistence on the ‘criterion of practice’ - “<i>the result of our action proves the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the things perceived</i>” - with Mach’s relativism.
</p><p>Lenin quotes [in ‘6. The Criterion of Practice’] from Mach’s ‘Analysis of Sensations’ as follows: “<i>In the common way of thinking and speaking <u>appearance</u>, <u>illusion</u>, is usually contrasted with <u>reality</u>. A pencil held in front of us in the air is seen as straight; when we dip it slantwise into water we see it as crooked. In the latter case we say that the pencil <u>appears crooked but in reality</u> it is straight. But what entitles us to declare <u>one</u> fact to be the reality, and to degrade the <u>other</u> to an appearance?</i>”.
</p><p>This passage serves as a useful insight into Lenin’s criticism of Machian thought. The ‘crooked’ appearance of a pencil dipped into water is indeed surely just an optical illusion. It owes nothing to Einstein’s relativity, there are no frames of reference moving at velocities close to the speed of light. It owes nothing to quantum mechanics, a pencil is far too large an object for such effects to be appreciable. It would take little experimental investigation to show that the pencil was indeed straight and that the illusion is caused by the differing speeds of light in air and water.
</p><p>However, Mach’s explanation of the ‘crooked pencil’ is as follows: “<i>Our expectation is deceived when we fall into the natural error of expecting what we are accustomed to although the case is unusual. The facts are not to blame for that. In these cases, to speak of appearance may have a practical significance, but not a scientific significance. Similarly, the question which is often asked, whether the world is real or whether we merely dream it, is devoid of all scientific significance. Even the wildest dream is a fact as much as any other</i>.” As Lenin comments, “<i>also the wildest philosophy</i>” (!).
</p><p>Now Mach’s advice not to draw conclusions based “<i>on what we are accustomed to</i>” can be useful advice, and perhaps advice that may have helped Einstein to consider new models of reality. Lenin himself, in an extract jotted down in his personal “Philosophical Notebooks”, noted how a “<i>flight of fantasy</i>” was sometimes a part of scientific process.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The approach of the (human) mind to a particular thing, the taking of a copy (= concept) of it is not a simple, immediate act, a dead mirroring, but one which is complex, split in two, zigzag like, which <i>includes in it</i> the possibility of the flight of fantasy from life; more than that: The possibility of the <i>transformation</i> (moreover, an unnoticeable transformation, of which man is unaware) of the abstract concept, idea, into a <i>fantasy</i>. ... For even in the simplest generalisation, in the most elementary general idea ... there is a certain bit of <i>fantasy</i>. (Vice versa, it would be stupid to deny the role of fantasy, even in the strictest science...)
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, “Philosophical Notebooks”: ‘Conspectus of Aristotle’s Book Metaphysics’, 1915.</span></p><p>However, to conclude, as Mach does in ‘Analysis of Sensations’, that it is irrelevant for a scientist to ask “<i>whether the world is real or whether we merely dream it</i>” is a step too far, a step that takes science away from a materialist insistence on objective reality – and a step that Einstein, for one, was not prepared to take.
</p><p>Lenin instead stresses the dialectical outlook of Marxism, an outlook that sees the world not, as its critics suggest, as one “<i>devoid of sound and colour</i>” but one that is “<i>richer, livelier, more varied than it actually seems, for with each step in the development of science new aspects are discovered</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The Machists love to declaim that they are philosophers who completely trust the evidence of our sense-organs, who regard the world as actually being what it seems to us to be, full of sounds, colours, etc., whereas to the materialists, they say, the world is dead, devoid of sound and colour, and in its reality different from what it seems to be, and so forth ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">But, in fact, the Machians are subjectivists and agnostics, for they do not sufficiently trust the evidence of our sense-organs and are inconsistent in their sensationalism. They do not recognise objective reality, independent of man, as the source of our sensations. They do not regard sensations as a true copy of this objective reality, thereby directly conflicting with natural science and throwing the door open for fideism.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">On the contrary, for the materialist the world is richer, livelier, more varied than it actually seems, for with each step in the development of science new aspects are discovered. For the materialist, sensations are images of the sole and ultimate objective reality, ultimate not in the sense that it has already been explored to the end, but in the sense that there is not and cannot be any other.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’</span></p><p>In isolation, these philosophical debates can seem abstract. However, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ also includes chapters where Lenin applies his philosophy to the scientific debates of that time. They show that Lenin was far from ‘dogmatic’ about scientific theory. On the contrary, he explains that Marxism fully expects scientific theory to change as new scientific evidence emerges.
</p><p><u><b>Was Lenin ‘outdated’ and ‘dogmatic’ about scientific thought?
</b></u></p><p>Rovelli accuses Lenin of supporting an outdated scientific model of the universe. But an objective reading of ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ shows that Lenin was taking on board the latest scientific thinking that he was able to gather from his research.
</p><p>The same accusation might just as well be levelled against some of the best scientific minds of the period, like Maxwell or Lorentz, both of whom had made key contributions to the latest scientific thinking, but who operated within the confines of the now ‘outdated’ idea of the ‘ether’, as discussed above.
</p><p>There was nothing ‘outdated’ or ‘dogmatic’ about Lenin’s references to ‘ether’ in 1908/9. At the time, only a small number of physicists had read and understood the significance of Einstein’s 1905 papers (and I don’t think there is any indication that Lenin was aware of Einstein’s work from his research). Lenin was simply reflecting the model that was generally accepted by most physicists at that point. However, Lenin was clearly aware that existing models were being challenged by new scientific evidence, as his chapter entitled ‘The Crisis in Modern Physics’, discussed below, makes very clear.
</p><p>In setting out his general approach to scientific thought, Lenin refers to Engels’ writing on science which stressed that genuine Marxism, dialectical materialism, rejected a mechanical approach that imposed “fixed boundary lines and distinctions”. He adds that recent evidence, including in radioactivity and electromagnetism, had shown how things that had previously been thought to be entirely separate were, in fact, closely connected.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“ ‘In the most varied fields of natural science,’ writes [Hungarian Marxist] Diner-Dénes, ‘new knowledge has been acquired, all of which tends to that single point which Engels desired to make clear, namely, that in nature ‘there are no irreconcilable contradictions, no forcibly fixed boundary lines and distinctions,’ and that if contradictions and distinctions are met with in nature, it is because we alone have introduced their rigidity and absoluteness into nature’.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">It was discovered, for instance, that light and electricity are only manifestations of one and the same force of nature. Each day it becomes more probable that chemical affinity may be reduced to electrical processes. The indestructible and non-disintegrable elements of chemistry, whose number continues to grow as though in derision of the unity of the world, prove to be destructible and disintegrable. The element radium has been converted into the element helium”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘The Recent Revolution in Natural Science’</span></p><p>Lenin recognised, as understood by a dialectical approach, that previously accepted models of science would show themselves to be correct only within certain limits. He draws attention to one of the most recently proposed examples of this, theories that suggested that the physics of objects travelling at very high velocities was going to have to go beyond earlier, Newtonian, limits.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“[Previously] mechanics was a copy of real motions of moderate velocity, while the new physics is a copy of real motions of enormous velocity. The recognition of theory as a copy, as an approximate copy of objective reality, is materialism”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’</span></p><p>Given the date of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, this reference is unlikely to be based on an awareness of Einstein’s ‘Special Relativity’. However, Lenin instead refers specifically to the “<i>modern physicists</i>” Larmor and Lorentz. They had already both hypothesised, in the years prior to Einstein's fully developed theoretical explanation of the issues, that ‘time dilation’ and ‘length contraction’ were needed to explain how physics applies to objects travelling at speeds close to that of light.
</p><p>One of Lenin's sources is a book by the French professor, Abel Rey [‘The Physical Theory of the Modern Physicists’, Paris, 1907]. Lenin describes Rey himself as being a “<i>muddlehead and a semi-Machian</i>”, but nevertheless feels he provides good source material because “<i>Rey summarises carefully and in general conscientiously the extremely abundant literature on the subject, not only French, but English and German as well</i>”. [M & E-C’, Chapter Five: ‘1. The Crisis in Modern Physics”]
</p><p>Lenin quotes approvingly from Rey, showing his appreciation for the idea that, if Larmor and Lorentz were proved through experiment to be correct, “<i>constancy of mass ... would be valid only for moderate velocities of bodies</i>”. There is therefore every reason to believe that Lenin would have also approved of Einstein’s ‘Special Relativity’ as well.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“... If, for example, the recent hypotheses of Lorentz, Larmor and Langevin were, thanks to certain experimental confirmation, to obtain a sufficiently stable basis for the systematisation of physics, it would be certain that the laws of present-day mechanics are nothing but a corollary of the laws of electromagnetism: they would constitute a special case of the latter within well-defined limits. Constancy of mass and our principle of inertia would be valid only for moderate velocities of bodies, the term ‘moderate’ being taken in relation to our senses and to the phenomena which constitute our general experience. A general recasting of mechanics would result, and hence also, a general recasting of the systematisation of physics”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, quoting Abel Rey, in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’</span></p><p>Far from being resistant to theoretical advances in physics, Lenin is clear that Marxism is a philosophy that insists that scientific theory has to accord with practice – and consequently has to change when new scientific discoveries require it to do so. Far from insisting dogmatically that previous propositions must not be revised, Lenin asserts that “<i>on the contrary, [this] is demanded by Marxism</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Engels says explicitly [in Ludwig Feuerbach] that ‘with each epoch making discovery even in the sphere of natural science [‘not to speak of the history of mankind’], materialism has to change its form’. Hence, a revision of the ‘form’ of Engels’ materialism, a revision of his natural-philosophical propositions is not only not ‘revisionism,’ in the accepted meaning of the term, but, on the contrary, is demanded by Marxism”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘The Recent Revolution in Natural Science’</span></p><p><b><u>
The ‘Crisis in Modern Physics’
</u></b></p><p>Materialism and Empirio-Criticism was written too soon historically to give an opinion about either General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. But Lenin’s writings about other, now largely forgotten, debates within the scientific community help to illustrate the method that Lenin would have applied. These are concentrated in the two chapters entitled “The Crisis in Modern Physics” and “Matter has Disappeared”. They demonstrate an outlook that is a long way from that of the narrow “<i>naïve materialism</i>” that Rovelli implies it would be.
</p><p>First of all, Lenin appreciates that he is not a professional physicist with the expertise to give a fully informed opinion on the “<i>specific physical theories</i>” under discussion in the latest scientific debates. However, he does feel qualified to give a philosophical opinion on “<i>the epistemological conclusions that follow from certain definite propositions and generally known discoveries</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“It goes without saying that in examining the connection between one of the schools of modern physicists and the rebirth of philosophical idealism, it is far from being our intention to deal with specific physical theories. What interests us exclusively is the epistemological conclusions that follow from certain definite propositions and generally known discoveries”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Materialism & Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘The Recent Revolution in Natural Science’</span></p><p>The title of the first of these two chapters, “The Crisis in Modern Physics”, paraphrases the words of the French physicist Henri Poincaré, who had written that new unexplained experimental evidence and conflicting theories were “<i>signs of a serious crisis</i>” in physics. These conflicts were nothing to do with General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. This was an earlier ‘crisis’ arising from the ‘null result’ of the ‘Michelson-Morley experiment’ and other new experimental findings.
</p><p>One of the new findings had been the ‘discovery’ of the electron. In 1897, the British physicist J.J. Thomson had carried out experiments on ‘cathode rays’ and concluded that they must be made up of the negatively charged particles that we now call electrons. His experiments allowed him to make a good estimate of the mass of an electron, Thomson reckoning it to be about a thousandth of the mass of a hydrogen ion (what we now call a proton – with today’s measurement giving the rest mass of an electron as about 1/1836 the mass of a proton).
</p><p>Thomson further proposed that atoms must be made up of a ball of positive charge into which these negative electrons were embedded (the so-called 'plum pudding model').
</p><p>In ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Lenin describes what was then an alternative ‘solar system’ model where “<i>the atom can be explained as resembling an infinitely small solar system, within which negative electrons move around a positive electron</i>”. [Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’] This was the precursor of the now better known ‘nuclear’ model proposed by Rutherford in 1911, based on his analysis of the results of Geiger and Marsden's 'alpha-particle scattering experiments’.
</p><p>Further experiments, in 1901-3, by the German physicist Walter Kaufmann, suggested (correctly) that an electron’s mass actually depended on its velocity. However, until Einstein was able to explain this finding as being due to ‘relativistic mass’ (summed up in his well-known E=mc^2 equation), some scientists concluded (wrongly, as it turned out) that mass must therefore depend solely on electromagnetic forces. This was being interpreted by some scientists as proof that mass – and therefore matter – didn’t actually exist at all. Some philosophers went further to say that, therefore, there could be no basis for materialism.
</p><p>Lenin’s response to these claims is significant. He doesn’t argue against the (apparent) scientific evidence of ‘zero mass’ but only that it provided no basis on which to draw a false ‘idealist’ conclusion that matter therefore does not exist. He writes that “<i>the ‘disappearance of matter’ ... has no relation to the epistemological distinction between materialism and idealism. When the physicists say that ‘matter is disappearing,’ they mean that hitherto science reduced its investigations of the physical world to three ultimate concepts: matter, electricity and ether; whereas now only the two latter remain</i>.” [‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’]
</p><p>In summary, as can be read in more detail in the longer extract, Lenin stresses that new theories questioning the existence of ‘matter’ – or at least matter in the form it had previously been described – simply demonstrated “<i>that our knowledge is penetrating deeper</i>”, taking a further step, ‘from relative truth to absolute truth’, towards understanding the actual nature of objective reality.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The principle of the conservation of mass has been undermined by the electron theory of matter. According to this theory atoms are composed of very minute particles called electrons, which are charged with positive or negative electricity and ‘are immersed in a medium which we call the ether.’ The experiments of physicists provide data for calculating the velocity of the electrons and their mass ... The velocity proves to be comparable with the velocity of light (300,000 kilometres per second), attaining, for instance, one-third of the latter. Under such circumstances the twofold mass of the electron has to be taken into account, corresponding to the necessity of overcoming the inertia, firstly, of the electron itself and, secondly, of the ether. The former mass will be the real or mechanical mass of the electron, the latter the ‘electrodynamic mass which represents the inertia of the ether.’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">And it turns out that the former mass is equal to zero. The entire mass of the electrons, or, at least, of the negative electrons, proves to be totally and exclusively electrodynamic in its origin. Mass disappears. The foundations of mechanics are undermined.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘1. The Crisis in Modern Physics</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">”It has become possible to reduce matter to electricity ... It is consequently possible to reduce the physical world from scores of elements to two or three elements (inasmuch as positive and negative electrons constitute “two essentially distinct kinds of matter,”) ... such is the real meaning of the statement regarding the disappearance of matter, its replacement by electricity, etc., which is leading so many people astray.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">‘Matter is disappearing’ means that the limit within which we have hitherto known matter disappears and that our knowledge is penetrating deeper; properties of matter are likewise disappearing which formerly seemed absolute, immutable, and primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass etc.) and which are now revealed to be relative and characteristic only of certain states of matter. For the sole ‘property’ of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">... the recognition of immutable elements, ‘of the immutable substance of things,’ and so forth, is not materialism, but <i>metaphysical</i>, i.e., anti-dialectical, materialism ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">In order to present the question in the only correct way, that is, from the dialectical materialist standpoint, we must ask: Do electrons, ether and so on exist as objective realities outside the human mind or not? The scientists will also have to answer this question unhesitatingly; and they do invariably answer it in the <u>affirmative</u>, just as they unhesitatingly recognise that nature existed prior to man and prior to organic matter. Thus, the question is decided in favour of materialism, for the concept matter, as we already stated, epistemologically implies <u>nothing but</u> objective reality existing independently of the human mind and reflected by it.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">... Dialectical materialism insists on the approximate, relative character of every scientific theory of the structure of matter and its properties; it insists on the absence of absolute boundaries in nature. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">However bizarre from the standpoint of ‘common sense’ the transformation of imponderable ether into ponderable matter and vice versa may appear, however ‘strange’ may seem the absence of any other kind of mass in the electron save electromagnetic mass, however extraordinary may be the fact that the mechanical laws of motion are confined only to a single sphere of natural phenomena and are subordinated to the more profound laws of electromagnetic phenomena, and so forth - all this is but another <u>corroboration</u> of dialectical materialism ...”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’</span></p><p>Lenin describes how properties of matter which had previously seemed “<i>absolute, immutable</i>”, like mass, were now turning out not to be so. He makes clear that this shouldn’t come as any surprise – nor as any threat - to anyone looking at scientific developments in a dialectical manner, a manner which “<i>insists on the absence of absolute boundaries in nature</i>”. The only question which a dialectical materialist will insist upon, however, is the existence, in whatever new ways we model it, of an “<i>objective reality existing independently of the human mind</i>”.
</p><p>Lenin’s analysis in these two chapters of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, makes clear that he was adamant that materialism should never dogmatically reject new models of reality “<i>however bizarre from the standpoint of ‘common sense</i>” they might seem.
</p><p>That’s why I believe that, faced with the experimental evidence for the far from ‘common-sense’ predictions of quantum mechanics and general relativity, Lenin would have welcomed these new scientific theories as yet deeper explanations of the nature of objective reality.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“... While yesterday the profundity of this knowledge did not go beyond the atom, and today does not go beyond the electron and ether, dialectical materialism insists on the temporary, relative, approximate character of all these <u>milestones</u> in the knowledge of nature gained by the progressing science of man”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’</span></p><p><b><u>‘Straying into Idealism’
</u></b></p><p>So was Lenin a lone voice seeking to maintain a materialist outlook amongst those supporting the ‘new' physics? Far from it. Lenin points to Rey’s analysis which had concluded that the “<i>vast majority</i>” of physicists still retained a “<i>mechanistic or neo-mechanistic</i>” [i.e. an essentially materialist] outlook, including scientists such as “<i>Kirchhoff, Helmholtz, Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Maxwell - among the older physicists - and Larmor and Lorentz among the modern physicists</i>”. [‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘1. The Crisis in Modern Physics’].
</p><p>However, Lenin also believed that some other scientists were indeed ‘straying into idealism’. Why? In his view, it was, in part, an overreaction to the earlier ‘mechanist’ materialism (the one Rovelli accuses Lenin of supporting!) that refused to countenance that the old ‘Newtonian’ model of the universe no longer offered a sufficient explanation of the latest scientific discoveries.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“It is mainly because the physicists did not know dialectics that the new physics strayed into idealism. They combated metaphysical (in Engels’ .. sense of the word) materialism and its one-sided ‘mechanism,’ and in so doing threw the baby out with the bath-water.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Denying the immutability of the elements and the properties of matter known hitherto, they ended by denying matter, i.e., the objective reality of the physical world. Denying the absolute character of some of the most important and basic laws, they ended by denying all objective law in nature and in declaring that a law of nature is a mere convention, ‘a limitation of expectation,’ ‘a logical necessity,’ and so forth. Insisting on the approximate and relative character of our knowledge, they ended by denying the object independent of the mind and reflected approximately-correctly and relatively-truthfully by the mind ... “.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘2. “Matter has Disappeared” ’</span></p><p>Lenin cites Henri Poincaré as an example. This French physicist had undoubtedly made significant contributions to Lorentz’s theory and was perhaps the first physicist to postulate that the speed of light has to be taken as being constant, a key concept underlying Einstein’s theory of relativity. However, in Lenin’s view, “<i>Henri Poincaré is an eminent physicist but a poor philosopher</i>”. [Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘3. Causality and Necessity in Nature’]
</p><p>From “<i>the ‘ruins’ of the old principles of physics</i>”, Lenin argues that Poincaré had erroneously drawn idealist conclusions, such as: “<i>whatever is not thought, is pure nothing</i>.”
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“We are faced, says Poincaré, with the ‘ruins’ of the old principles of physics, ‘a general debacle of principles’ .... We have already seen what epistemological deductions the author draws from this ‘period of doubt’: ‘it is not nature which imposes on [or dictates to] us the concepts of space and time, but we who impose them on nature’; ‘whatever is not thought, is pure nothing’.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">These deductions are idealist deductions. The breakdown of the most fundamental principles shows (such is Poincaré's trend of thought) that these principles are not copies, photographs of nature, not images of something external in relation to man's consciousness, but products of his consciousness.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘1. The Crisis in Modern Physics’</span></p><p>Linked to this philosophical outlook was the idea that “<i>science was nothing but a symbolic formula, a method of notation</i>”, rather than, as Marxism sets out, offering a real, if never perfect, reflection of objective reality. As Lenin puts it, “<i>for Poincaré ... the laws of nature are symbols, conventions, which man creates for the sake of ‘<u>convenience</u>’.</i>”
</p><p>Lenin also quotes from an English mathematician with a similar philosophical outlook, Karl Pearson: “<i>The laws of science are products of the human mind rather than factors of the external world ... The necessity lies in the world of conceptions and not in the world of perceptions.</i>” [both quotes from ‘Materialism & Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘3. Causality and Necessity in Nature’].</p><p>Lenin notes that a similar outlook is adopted by Bogdanov in his ‘Empirio-Monism’. He responds by asserting that materialism believes science is revealing the laws and relationships – however complex or unexpected - underlying the universe, and not that scientific laws are just abstractions derived from human thought.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Bogdanov wrote (in Empirio-Monism): ‘Laws do not belong to the sphere of experience ... they are not given in it, but are created by thought as a means of organising experience, of harmoniously co-ordinating it into a symmetrical whole ... Empirio-monism is possible only because knowledge actively harmonises experience, eliminating its infinite contradictions, creating for it universal organising forms, replacing the primeval chaotic world of elements by a derivative, ordered world of relations’.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">That is not true. The idea that knowledge can ‘create’ universal forms, replace the primeval chaos by order, etc., is the idea of idealist philosophy. The world is matter moving in conformity to law, and our knowledge, being the highest product of nature, is in a position only to <u>reflect</u> this conformity to law”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘3. Causality and Necessity in Nature’</span></p><p>There are some interesting parallels in these formulations with the approach taken by Bohr and Heisenberg to quantum mechanics and the ongoing debates amongst quantum theorists. Does the ‘wave-function’ actually exist or is it just a mathematical ‘convenience’ used to calculate probability?
</p><p>Lenin again makes clear that concerns about such ‘idealist’ conclusions [even if not expressed in such philosophical terms] were also shared by many scientists who, at root, were grounded by experiment and ‘practice’ in an essentially materialist outlook.
</p><p>Lenin quotes from an address made by an A. W. Rücker, the president of the physics section of the ‘British Association for the Advancement of Science’, at its meeting held in Glasgow in 1901. Rücker’s speech confronted essentially the same issues that were being raised by Lenin i.e. “<i>whether the hypotheses which are at the base of the scientific theories now most generally accepted are to be regarded as accurate descriptions of the constitution of the universe around us, or merely as convenient fictions</i>”. Rücker concludes that scientists must take the first approach - i.e. materialism.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The questions still force themselves upon us: ‘Can we argue back from the phenomenon displayed by matter to the constitution of matter itself; whether we have any reason to believe that the sketch which science has already drawn is to some extent a copy, and not a mere diagram of the truth’. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Analysing the problem of the structure of matter, Rücker takes air as an example, saying that it consists of gases and that science resolves ‘an elementary gas into a mixture of atoms and ether. ... There are those who cry ‘Halt’; molecules and atoms cannot be directly perceived; they are mere conceptions, which have their uses, but cannot be regarded as realities.’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"> ‘It may be granted that we have not yet framed a consistent image either of the nature of the atoms or of the ether in which they exist, but I have tried to show that in spite of the tentative nature of some of our theories, in spite of many outstanding difficulties, the atomic theory unifies so many facts, simplifies so much that is complicated, that we have a right to insist - at all events until an equally intelligible rival hypothesis is produced - that the main structure of our theory is true; that atoms are not merely aids to puzzled mathematicians, but physical realities.’ ”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, quoting A.W.Rücker, in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘4.The Two Trends in Modern Physics and English Spiritualism’</span></p><p>
Given Rovelli’s philosophical outlook, and his determination that the ideas of quantum mechanics gain widespread acceptance, it is perhaps not altogether surprising that he is also guilty of an overreaction to what he thinks, wrongly, is Lenin’s ‘mechanist’ materialism . When Rovelli writes that “<i>reality may be much more complex than the naïve materialism of eighteenth-century physics</i>”, he thinks he is taking aim at Lenin. But, once again, an objective reading of ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ shows that Lenin was not a dogmatic mechanist but a dialectical materialist.
</p><p><b><u>Mathematical models and material reality
</u></b></p><p>Quantum mechanics was founded on the complex mathematical methods of Heisenberg and Schrödinger. And, as described above by his colleague Petersen, theorists like Bohr were content for quantum physicists to essentially limit their analyses to the mathematics, to an “<i>abstract quantum physical description</i>” rather than “<i>to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is</i>”.
</p><p>But this tendency for theoretical physics to rely increasingly on complex mathematical relationships, rather than providing concrete models of the material reality underlying those equations, had already started to concern some scientists and philosophers at the time Lenin was writing in 1909.
</p><p>Lenin notes Abel Rey’s concern about the tendency of mathematicians working on scientific theories to “<i>reduce them to abstractions as far as possible, to present them in an entirely non-material and conceptual manner</i>”. </p><p>He also quotes physicist Ludwig Boltzmann’s warning that “<i>those who believe atomism to have been eliminated by [the mathematical modelling of] differential equations, cannot see the wood for the trees ... If we do not wish to entertain illusions as to the significance of a differential equation ... we cannot doubt that this picture of the world (expressed in differential equations) must again by its nature be an atomic one</i>”. [‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘5. The Two Trends in Modern Physics and German Idealism’]
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The mathematicians ... have formed too abstract a conception of the science of physics. ... They have done everything to save objectivity, for they are aware that without objectivity there can be no physics. . . . But the complexity or deviousness of their theories nevertheless leaves an uneasy feeling. It is too artificial, too far-fetched, too stilted; the experimenter here does not feel the spontaneous confidence which constant contact with physical reality gives him. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">The crisis in physics lies in the conquest of the realm of physics by the mathematical spirit. ... Theoretical physics has become mathematical physics. ... the mathematician, accustomed to conceptual (purely logical) elements, which furnish the sole subject matter of his work, and feeling himself cramped by crude, material elements, which he found insufficiently pliable, necessarily always tended to reduce them to abstractions as far as possible, to present them in an entirely non-material and conceptual manner, or even to ignore them altogether. The elements, as real, objective data, as <u>physical elements</u>, so to speak, completely disappeared. There remained only formal relations represented by the differential equations”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, quoting Abel Rey, in ‘Materialism and E-C’, Chapter Five: ‘8.”Physical” Idealism’</span></p><p>As also noted earlier, no lesser a scientist than Albert Einstein voiced a similar concern that a purely statistical model of the world was insufficient and that mathematical models needed to also explain the nature of underlying objective reality. That advice surely still holds true for physics today.
</p><p><b><u>Space, Time and “Matter in Motion”
</u></b></p><p>Critics of Lenin, like Rovelli, may argue that my analysis so far has presented a biased picture of Lenin’s thought. They would point to his consistent use of the phrase “<i>matter in motion</i>” throughout ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ as evidence that Lenin really was the naïve mechanist that he has been accused of being. It is a phrase that might imply that the only scientific models that Lenin could accept would, as Rovelli puts it, be ones where reality “<i>consists only of particles of matter in motion</i>”.
</p><p>Scientific thought since Lenin’s time has certainly left the phrase, originally taken from Engels, as an outdated way to fully describe the world around us. The now well-tested concept of ‘mass-energy equivalence’, applied for example to nuclear power and to explain the ‘life cycle’ of stars, has meant that we now know that matter can in fact be ‘created’ and ‘destroyed’. General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have profoundly changed our understanding of matter, space and time.
</p><p>But Lenin’s use of the phrase “<i>matter in motion</i>” needs to be read in the context of the whole book, throughout which Lenin stresses that there are no ‘immutable’ categories, recognising for example, that the physics of objects travelling at very high velocities was now being refined to go beyond earlier, Newtonian, limits. He recognises that human understanding of matter, space and time will change, and he welcomes every scientific advance as another step towards a full picture of the nature of objective reality in which we exist.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Human conceptions of space and time are relative, but these relative conceptions go to compound absolute truth. These relative conceptions, in their development, move towards absolute truth and approach nearer and nearer to it. The mutability of human conceptions of space and time no more refutes the objective reality of space and time than the mutability of scientific knowledge of the structure and forms of matter in motion refutes the objective reality of the external world”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘5. Space and Time’</span></p><p>His book notes and welcomes the “<i>amazing</i>” discoveries being made by the science of his time about the nature of matter, such as the electron, discoveries that were presenting new models of nature that were “<i>much more complicated than the old mechanics</i>”. As his response to the debate about ‘disappearing matter’ shows, Lenin was ready to accept to new ways of describing the nature of reality “<i>however bizarre from the standpoint of ‘common sense’ </i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The electron is to the atom as a full stop in this book is to the size of a building 200 feet long, 100 feet broad, and 50 feet high ... ; it moves with a velocity as high as 270,000 kilometres per second; its mass is a function of its velocity; it makes 500 trillion revolutions in a second - all this is much more complicated than the old mechanics; but it is, nevertheless, movement of matter in space and time. Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature. But this does not mean that nature is the creation of our mind”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Five: ‘4.The Two Trends in Modern Physics and English Spiritualism’</span></p><p>So, Lenin's use of the phrase “<i>matter in motion</i>” needs to be recognised as his shorthand way to describe the objective material reality that, as a materialist, he insisted existed around us, rather than it being simply a product of the human mind. For the time in which he was writing, it wasn’t a bad formula. But, as a dialectical materialist, Lenin was someone who was ready to change his formulas and slogans when they no longer matched reality – whether in politics or science. “<i>Matter in motion</i>” was also a formula that Lenin would have been prepared to change too.
</p><p>Scientific formulations have to be taken in their historical context, according to the scientific available at that time, rather than looking at them through the perspective of today’s knowledge. However, if that’s true for Lenin, then it’s also true for Mach. And just as it’s wrong to portray Lenin as an inflexible ‘naïve materialist’, it would also be wrong to take Mach out of his historical context, as if he had already developed conceptions about space and time in a way that were fully consistent with today’s science.
</p><p>Mach’s scientific and philosophical thought was far from the precise analysis provided by Einstein’s 1905 papers. As discussed above, Mach tried to steer a course between materialism and idealism, believing that to ask “<i>whether the world is real or whether we merely dream it, is devoid of all scientific significance</i>.” As Rovelli himself recognises “<i>it was a metaphysics ... of elements and functions</i>”.</p><p>Rather than putting forward a clear understanding of ‘relativity’ – i.e. that how we experience space and time alters according to our reference frame – Mach’s understanding was based on ‘relativism’ – i.e. that how we experience space and time alters according to human thought and sensations.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“We read in Mach: ‘Space and time are well ordered systems of series of sensations’ (Mechanics, 3rd German edition). ... According to Mach, it is not man with his sensations that exists in space and time, but space and time that exist in man, that depend upon man and are generated by man. ... He constructs his epistemological theory time and space on the principle of relativism, and that is all. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">If our notion of space is taken from experience <i>without being</i> a reflection of objective reality outside us, Mach’s theory remains idealistic. The existence of nature in <i>time</i>, measured in millions of years, <i>prior to</i> the appearance of man and human experience, shows how absurd this idealist theory is.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“ If time and space are only concepts, man, who created them is justified in going <i>beyond their bounds</i>, and bourgeois professors are justified in receiving salaries from reactionary governments for defending the right to go beyond these bounds, for directly or indirectly defending medieval ‘nonsense’. ”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘5. Space and Time’</span></p><p>Lenin wasn’t just critical of Mach’s conception of space and time, he was also critical of that of Bogdanov too. Following the approach of ‘Empirio-Monism’ discussed earlier, Bogdanov sought to base the objectivity of time and space on the fact that ‘social co-ordination’ meant that they had both become generally accepted concepts.</p><p>Lenin counters that: “this is absolutely false”, again pointing out that, on this basis, unscientific biblical teaching about creationism and the age of the Earth, generally accepted by millions of believers, could also be categorised as being ‘objective’ truths.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“It is one thing how, with the help of various sense organs, man perceives space, and how, in the course of long historical development, abstract ideas of space are derived from these perceptions; it is an entirely different thing whether there is an objective reality independent of mankind which corresponds to these perceptions and conceptions of mankind. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">[Bogdanov says in Empirio-Monism that] time, like space, is ‘a form of social co-ordination of the experiences of different people’, the ‘objectivity’ of both lies in their ‘general significance’. This is absolutely false. Religion also has general significance as expressing the social co-ordination of the experience of the greater part of humanity. But there is no objective reality that corresponds to the teachings of religion, for example, on the past of the earth and the creation of the world.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">There is an objective reality that <i>corresponds</i> to the teaching of science (although it is as relative at every stage in the development of science as every stage in the development of religion is relative) that the earth existed <i>prior</i> to any society, <i>prior</i> to man, <i>prior</i> to organic matter, and that it has existed for a <i>definite</i> time and in a <i>definite</i> space in relation to the other planets. According to Bogdanov, the various forms of space and time adapt themselves to man’s experience and his perceptive faculty. As a matter of fact, just the reverse is true: our ‘experience’ and our perception adapt themselves more and more to <i>objective</i> space and time, and <i>reflect</i> them ever more correctly and profoundly.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘5. Space and Time’</span></p><p>Lenin acknowledges that Mach and, for example, idealists like Poincaré, were making useful contributions to the ongoing scientific debates about the nature of space and time. However, he insisted that they were in error to suggest that objective reality – in whatever form the latest scientific theories described it - need not exist at all.
</p><p>Such an approach left room for the idea that something beyond material reality and objective science was needed to explain the nature of the universe. It opened the door to spiritualism and religious explanations that should have no place in modern science.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“It is absolutely unpardonable to confound, as the Machians do, any particular theory of the structure of matter with the epistemological category, to confound the problem of the new properties of new aspects of matter (electrons, for example) with the old problem of the theory of knowledge, with the problem of the sources of our knowledge, the existence of objective truth.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Two: ‘4. Does Objective Truth Exist?’
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Poincaré says that the concepts space and time are relative and that it follows ... that ‘nature does not impose them upon us, but we impose them upon nature, for we find them convenient’. ... The views of the English Machist Karl Pearson are quite definite. He says: ‘Of time as of space we cannot assert a real existence: it is not in things but in our mode of perceiving them.’ This is idealism, pure and simple. ... The Machists ... erred in confounding the mutability of human conceptions of time and space, their exclusively relative character, with the immutability of the fact that man and nature exist only in time and space, and that beings outside time and space, as invented by the priests and maintained by the imagination of the ignorant and downtrodden mass of humanity, are disordered fantasies, the artifices of philosophical idealism - rotten products of a rotten social system”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘5. Space and Time’</span></p><p>One of the new contributions to science being explored at this time was the application of multi-dimensional mathematics to theoretical modelling. This raised the possibility of space having four or more dimensions, rather than just three. Lenin makes clear that he agrees with Mach that such multi-dimensional calculations provided a valid technique. Interestingly, he also suggests that, in this case, Mach also shared Lenin’s doubts as to whether it could provide a meaningful model of reality.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“In his Mechanics, Mach defends the mathematicians who are investigating the problem of conceivable spaces with n dimensions; he defends them against the charge of drawing ‘preposterous’ conclusions from their investigations. The defence is absolutely and undoubtedly just, but see the epistemological position Mach takes up in this defence. Recent mathematics, Mach says, has raised the very important and useful question of a space of n dimensions as a conceivable space; nevertheless, only three-dimensional space remains the ‘real case’ [‘ein wirklicher Fall’]. In vain, therefore, ‘many theologians who experience difficulty in deciding where to place hell’, as well as the spiritualists, have sought to take advantage of the fourth dimension. Very good! Mach refuses to join company with the theologians and the spiritualists.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Lenin, ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’, Chapter Three: ‘5. Space and Time’</span></p><p>It would, as we now know, take Einstein to show Lenin - and Mach - that it is in fact possible to conceive of a four-dimensional universe, and one that still exists as an objective reality, as long as ‘time’ was treated as that fourth dimension.
</p><p><b><u>Returning to Rovelli
</u></b></p><p>Rovelli clearly thinks that Lenin’s emphasis on the philosophical divide between ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism’ is unnecessary. In his chapter on Lenin and Bogdanov, he writes that, if materialism is “<i>the belief that a world exists beyond our minds ... then ... even the Pope is a materialist</i>”.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“Lenin defines 'materialism' in his book as the belief that a world exists beyond our minds. If this is the definition of materialism, then Mach is definitely a materialist; we are all materialists. Even the Pope is a materialist. But then, for Lenin, the only acceptable version of materialism is the idea that ‘there is nothing in the world except matter in motion in space and in time', and that we can arrive at 'certain truths' through knowledge of matter. Bogdanov highlights the scientific as much as the historical weakness of these peremptory assertions.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Of course the world is outside of our mind, but things are much more subtle than naïve materialism would have it. The choice is not just between the idea that the world exists only in our minds, and the idea that it consists only of particles of matter in motion.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter V: ‘Aleksandr Bogdanov and Vladimir Lenin’</span></p><p>If Rovelli feels that the advance of science and culture has left little room for philosophical idealism compared to Lenin’s time, all well and good. However, there are still many millions who adhere to literal religious explanations of evolution and other aspects of science. There are billions more who, at the same time as accepting modern science, also hold on to religious faith and the hope that some kind of spiritual existence can be continued outside the material world. While those individual beliefs may provide solace, they can also be used to generate prejudice and to blunt the desire for struggle, in the forlorn hope that there are easier, religious or spiritual, solutions to the world’s problems.
</p><p>Rovelli would have been more accurate to have said that materialists believe that there is “<i>only</i>” a world that exists beyond our minds. On that basis, no, the Pope is certainly <u>not</u> a materialist.
</p><p>In the scientific realm, even more so than in Lenin’s time, then, yes, the “<i>vast majority</i>” of scientists, focused as they are on observing the real world around us, will inevitably adopt a materialist outlook, although still being subject to the social and economic pressures arising from capitalist production. However, particularly in the more theoretical aspects of science, such as quantum physics, I believe the dangers of the kind of philosophical ‘agnosticism’ expressed by Bohr and Mach still persist.
</p><p>Does Rovelli’s ‘relational quantum mechanics’, postulating, as the ‘New Scientist’ puts it, that “<i>there is no such thing as things, only relations between things</i>” nevertheless give one possible model of reality, if one even more ‘bizarre’ than ‘common-sense’ would suggest? Rovelli thinks it does.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The best description of reality that we have found is in terms of events that weave a web of interactions. 'Entities' are nothing other than ephemeral nodes in this web. Their properties are not determined until the moment of these interactions; they exist only in relation to something else. Everything is what it is only with respect to something else.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter VII: ‘But is It Really Possible?’</span></p><p>Personally, I don’t think Rovelli does himself any favours in ‘Helgoland’ with his whimsical ramblings and partial and sometimes misconceived analysis of other philosophies, not least that of Lenin. His arguments for ‘RQM’ in ‘Helgoland’ would have been more convincing if they had concentrated on experimental evidence and scientific analysis instead.
</p><p>I have hopefully shown that I know enough about both Marxism and physics, and about the history of science, to demonstrate that Rovelli has misinterpreted much of ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ (although he wouldn’t be the first person to have done so!). Perhaps if he re-read it with more of an open mind, he might instead find ideas that could be of assistance to quantum theorists.
</p><p>However, like Lenin, neither do I profess to have sufficient scientific expertise to comment with sufficient insight on the various different models of ‘quantum reality’ presently under debate. As I noted earlier, ‘Helgoland’ lists a number of alternative models. It also gives their different solutions to the ‘Schrödinger’s Cat paradox’, outlined earlier.
</p><p>The ‘Many Worlds’ interpretation takes Schrödinger’s wave function as being a physical reality, not just a mathematical predictor of probability. ‘Schrödinger‘s Cat’ is therefore accurately described by its wave function as a ‘superposition’ of being ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ at one and the same time. The observer’s own wave function then interacts with that of the cat to create two separate, but both real, alternative worlds. In one, the cat is alive, in the other, the cat is dead.
</p><p>The ‘Hidden Variables’ interpretation was originally developed by David Bohm, an American scientist who had to leave the US because of the pressure he was put under for his suspected Communist Party membership. This interpretation also recognises the wave function as being a physical reality, and one that guides real particles. They will therefore exist in definite locations, rather than those locations being non-determined. So, in this case, ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ is definitely either alive or dead.
</p><p>The ‘Physical Collapse’ interpretation is a third model recognising the wave function as a physical reality. It postulates that the ‘collapse’ of the wave function is not caused by observation but can occur spontaneously. Although this is presumed to happen very infrequently, in the case of large-scale objects, the likelihood of such an occurrence would become much greater. In this model therefore, the wave function of ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ quickly adopts either the ‘dead’ or ‘alive’ configuration.
</p><p>‘QBism’ or ‘Quantum-Bayesianism’ takes a different approach. It argues, as Bohr did, that the wave function is not a real entity, just a way to calculate probability. ‘QBism’ doesn’t attempt to go beyond ‘observables’ in order to make further assumptions about the nature of reality. Therefore it argues that it is pointless to ask about the state that ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ was in before we observed it. Only afterwards, on observation, can we clearly say it has been seen as being either ‘dead’ or ‘alive’.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“QBism holds a drastically instrumental conception of science: the theory gives predictions only about what a subject can see. I think that science is not just about making predictions. It also provides us with a vision of reality, a conceptual framework for thinking about things. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">If the objective of science was solely to make predictions, Copernicus would not have discovered anything new with respect to Ptolemy. His astronomical predictions are no better than Ptolemy's. But Copernicus found a key with which to rethink everything, to reach a new level of understanding. ...
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Instead of seeing the observer as a part of the world, QBism sees the world reflected in the observer. In so doing, it leaves behind naïve materialism, but ends up falling into an implicit form of idealism. The observer himself can be observed. ... I want a theory of physics that accounts for the structure of the universe, that clarifies what it is to be an observer in the universe, not a theory that makes the universe depend on me observing it”.
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter II: ‘Accepting Indeterminacy’</span></p><p>Rovelli’s ‘RQM’ also takes the wave function as a predictor of probability but with an important difference. Rovelli makes clear that he does believe that science “<i>provides us with a vision of reality, a conceptual framework for thinking about things</i>”. He sees ‘QBism’ (correctly!) as “<i>falling into an implicit form of idealism</i>” and forgets that every ‘observer’ is also ‘observed’. Instead, ‘RQM’ is based on the idea that every object has to be seen in relation to its interaction with every other object. Objects only effectively ‘exist’ to us when we interact with, or ‘observe’, them.
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">“The world that we observe is continuously interacting. It is a dense web of interactions. Individual objects are the way in which they interact. If there was an object that had no interactions, no effect upon anything, emitted no light, attracted nothing and repelled nothing, was not touched and had no smell... it would be as good as non-existent. To speak of objects that never interact is to speak of something - even if it existed - that could not concern us. It is not even clear what it would mean to say that such objects 'exist'. The world that we know, that relates to us, that interests us, what we call 'reality', is the vast web of interacting entities, of which we are a part, that manifest themselves by interacting with each other. It is with this web that we are dealing.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Carlo Rovelli, ‘Helgoland’, Chapter III: Relations’</span></p><p>So, for ‘RQM’, ‘Schrödinger‘s Cat’ is well aware whether it is ‘alive’ or ‘dead’. However, it argues that a separate observer sees things differently, because to them the quantum possibilities of the cat being in either state remain. So, RQM accepts probabilistic indeterminacy but adds that the universe consists of a web of interactions where different observers will interact with different outcomes.
</p><p>‘RQM’ is certainly not without its critics. For example, the Mexican physicists Muciño, Okon and Sudarsky, supporters of the ‘Physical Collapse’ interpretation, have been <a href="https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/2107.05817/" target="_blank">engaged in debate</a> with Rovelli about what they see as its logical inconsistencies and vague argumentation. They note, for example, that RQM fails to address the question of the ‘measurement problem’ discussed earlier, instead disguising matters with “<i>new words</i>” (reminiscent of Lenin’s criticisms of Mach & Bogdanov).
</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">"RQM’s ‘resolution’ of the traditional tension between unitary evolution and wave function collapse is as obscure and vague as in standard quantum mechanics. The tension is dressed with new words such as ‘any interaction leading to an event’ instead of ‘measurement’ but the problem prevails. ... Rovelli’s attempt to substitute ‘measurements’ by ‘interactions’ does not really solve the ambiguity.”
</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Muciño, Okon and Sudarsky, ‘A reply to Rovelli’s response”, 2021.</span></p><p>In conclusion, while Rovelli has the advantage of being able to publicise his particular model of quantum theory through a bestselling paperback, it needs to be remembered that ‘Relational Quantum Mechanics’ is but one of several models that are being debated. What’s more, as US Professor John D. Norton noted in the earlier section on thee ‘Einstein-Bohr Debate’, there are still issues that are “<i>quite unresolved in the foundations of quantum theory</i>”. Perhaps Lenin’s advice on scientific thinking in ‘Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ might still have some relevance after all.
</p><p>As a final point, it is of course commonplace for socialists to recall Marx’s ‘eleventh thesis’ on Feuerbach that “<i>philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it</i>.” I would only add that such a change is not only urgently needed to address the burning issues of poverty, inequality, war and climate change, but also to provide the time and resources to allow humanity to fully develop its understanding of the nature of the universe in which we exist.</p><p><i>Martin Powell-Davies, 18th June 2023. </i></p><p><i>A pdf of this article can be downloaded from <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bGoxcZQM4s6rI2H3MLBRpqS_BlFWhqRY/view?usp=drivesdk" target="_blank">here</a>.</i></p><p>
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</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-63722506263525809692023-05-22T05:54:00.007+01:002023-05-22T11:24:54.433+01:00Greece - paying the price of betrayal <p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The first round of Greece's 2023 General Election took place on Sunday 21 May. The results gave no single party the overall majority needed to immediately form a Government on their own. However, the main party of Greek capitalism, “New Democracy”, were the clear winners, taking over 40% of the vote. They won the largest vote in all but one of Greece’s election districts.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqas59jdZdyHFNhzOYgJoIq28jGb8D-1iyOBhnDd0HV79QFWfVPrjMSlMvK3NiXbrUh59qq6jgX408SstsNIiKQqnTjWyZZXLPvcq3ee2QlAckhpYfQfgNzdMNjBrcd7TUWwok0LDUdFN5cby1Fxa28Ldd6pm2mx7YuU2epm2jTs_qrDHgenYjukIJkQ/s944/Screenshot_20230522-001946.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="944" data-original-width="864" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqas59jdZdyHFNhzOYgJoIq28jGb8D-1iyOBhnDd0HV79QFWfVPrjMSlMvK3NiXbrUh59qq6jgX408SstsNIiKQqnTjWyZZXLPvcq3ee2QlAckhpYfQfgNzdMNjBrcd7TUWwok0LDUdFN5cby1Fxa28Ldd6pm2mx7YuU2epm2jTs_qrDHgenYjukIJkQ/s320/Screenshot_20230522-001946.png" width="293" /></span></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>Result with nearly all votes counted:
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>New Democracy 41% 146 MPs
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>Syriza 20% 71 MPs
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>PASOK 11.5% 41 MPs
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>KKE 7% 26 MPs
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>Hellenic Solution 4.5% 16 MPs
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>Other Parties 16% but without any reaching the 3% threshold required for seats in Parliament
</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>Turnout: 61% with 2.6% of those as spoilt or blank votes.
</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">‘New Democracy’ (ND) are set to be able to continue as the governing party, with their leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis continuing as Prime Minister. Their clear margin of victory means that ND won’t even have to opt to find a coalition partner. Instead, Mitsotakis has indicated that he will wait for a second round of voting in early July, confident that he would then be able to secure an outright victory.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">These results are a major blow to the hopes of a return to office by the former left Greek PM Alexis Tsipras. His party, Syriza, retained its position as the main ‘left’ opposition party in Greece but, far from closing the gap on the ruling ND, its vote share fell substantially compared to the previous general election in 2019, from 31% to just 20%.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">How did this result come about? Why has the conservative ND retained its 40% vote share when most Greeks are struggling with low wages and rising prices?
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To answer these questions, it’s important to remember the events of the previous decade.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">First of all, faced with a debt crisis, the formerly left-wing PASOK-led government presided over the sweeping austerity measures demanded of Greece by the ‘Troika’ of IMF and EU institutions. Greek workers suffered massive cuts to their wages, jobs and pensions, alongside mass privatisation of state assets. However, PASOK paid for their abandonment of socialist ideas in general, and the working-class in particular. Their electoral support collapsed. From once being the main party for Greek workers, their vote fell to just 8% in the 2019 elections. In Sunday’s poll, their vote recovered slightly, to around 12%, but their betrayal has not been forgotten by the Greek working-class.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Greek workers made valiant efforts to resist the attacks imposed on them by their governments at the behest of the ‘Troika’. But the hopes and fighting traditions of the Greek working-class weren’t just betrayed by PASOK. The supposedly socialist government of the new left formation, Syriza, also caved in to the demands imposed by EU capitalism, despite the huge ‘OXI/NO’ vote in the 2015 referendum that had rejected the Troika’s program of yet more spending cuts. The 2023 election results show that Syriza’s failure to stand firm has also not been forgotten by Greek workers either.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">After Syriza’s capitulation to the Troika, Mitsotakis’ right-wing ND government was elected in 2019. As a reliable representative of capitalism, the ‘markets’ were happy to support Mitsotakis in his efforts to ‘manage’ the debt-ridden Greek economy. The money-lenders were also keen to get their money back - plus a tidy profit – all at the expense of the working-class, of course. Overseas investment also rose, with profiteers taking advantage of privatisation and low wages.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Official figures show that government budgets are now (just) back in surplus and that growth rates for Greece are some of the highest in the EU. However that ‘growth’ is starting from a low base, thanks to the damage done largely by Troika-enforced austerity but also by the Covid pandemic.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Greek GDP is still only 80% of its pre-crisis levels. The Greek economy still carries a huge debt burden. Above all, any ‘growth’ has certainly not been reflected in the living standards of most Greeks. Far from it. Average wages are only about 75% of what they were before the debt crisis began. At the same time, the prices of food, fuel and other essentials have rocketed upwards. Many Greeks are living in poverty and the public services that they need, like health and education, are in a dire state.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Those contrasting features of the Greek economy were the main features of the contrasting campaigns of Mitsotakis’ ND and Tsipras’ Syriza. Whereas Mitsotakis’ campaign stressed that only an ND government could be trusted with the economy, Tsipras stressed that only Syriza could bring “change” for the better. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, Syriza’s programme for increased public expenditure was only spoken about in very vague terms. Previous radicalism was replaced with "moderation'. There was little to convince Greek workers that, this time, Syriza could be relied on to stand up for them and resist the demands of the capitalist ‘markets’.
</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2llHyJ47icvJgyIafydp4gTtF5Pc7lNbd7r9biHDuA3rJzmYOn-HkyuVpWjJiUD9bA5h6AOhpW_mcoyseOVmG7DWQLmuep5ir4RDgk8LAz2pTJOHPA2CLka1iZnZk0I3V5dDh5IQpHL1ZvlSzJh27gmpcMU3cOTIxNvXAIJrVt_olL7kB1hEMMZrbCg/s1080/FB_IMG_1684741562821.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="1080" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2llHyJ47icvJgyIafydp4gTtF5Pc7lNbd7r9biHDuA3rJzmYOn-HkyuVpWjJiUD9bA5h6AOhpW_mcoyseOVmG7DWQLmuep5ir4RDgk8LAz2pTJOHPA2CLka1iZnZk0I3V5dDh5IQpHL1ZvlSzJh27gmpcMU3cOTIxNvXAIJrVt_olL7kB1hEMMZrbCg/w320-h180/FB_IMG_1684741562821.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoon by @yianderm - Tsipras heading for a fall by reaching out to right-wing voters</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In fact, most voters had little faith in any of the main political parties. Bitter experience has understandably left many Greeks, particularly young voters, cynical about the promises made by all the party leaders. “They’re all the same” was a comment made by many discussing the election.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Recognising their need to mobilise younger voters, one of Syriza’s election broadcasts showed a well-dressed older couple laughing at a group of youth saying they weren’t going to bother voting. “Don’t worry, we’ll vote for you” say the wealthy pair, before driving away.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, cleverly crafted adverts were never going to be enough to overcome the feeling of betrayal felt by so many young people who have seen their hopes of a decent future stolen from them. The turnout in the election was only about 60%, similar to the turnout in the 2019 poll.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That cynicism and disappointment at past betrayals was also reflected in generally low attendances at the various parties’ election meetings and rallies. Yes, party stalls were visible in the squares of even small towns, but their volunteers were usually talking to themselves rather than the public who mainly passed by with disinterest. Mitsotakis didn’t even risk a major outdoor rally although Tsipras did – with Syriza’s supporters filling Sintagma Square in Athens a few days before the election day. However, those supporters will now be demoralised by Syriza’s poor results.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Yes, Syriza remains the main opposition party. It was seen by some ‘left’ voters as at least being the ‘lesser evil’ compared to voting for ‘New Democracy’ (ND) party. However, far more than ‘lesser evilism’ was required to mobilise the support needed to kick Mitsotakis out of office.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A genuine workers’ party standing on a clear socialist programme could have defeated Mitsotakis, particularly after the two scandals that mired the last months of his outgoing administration.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Firstly, it was revealed that a section of the security services, supposedly under Mitsotakis’ control, had been using spyware to intercept the calls of journalists and political rivals. For many Greeks, that is a reminder of the unhappy past of a country where a military government was in power only 50 years ago.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Secondly, the Tempi train crash on 28 February, where 57 people died in a head-on collision on what was a supposedly modernised railway track, exposed how privatisation and foreign investment has been carried out for the benefit of the profiteers, not in the interests of Greek workers.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The results show that, despite these scandals, and the crisis in living standards, Tsipras was not able to persuade enough workers that Syriza could be trusted with their votes. That’s hardly surprising given their record of betrayal.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">MeRA25, a new left formation led by former Syriza Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis, failed to get even the 3% minimum vote needed to retain its seats in Parliament. In fact, on 2.6%, as many voters decided to demonstrate their ‘protest vote’ by putting a blank or spoiled vote in the ballot box as voted for MeRA25.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Despite his separation from Syriza, Varoufakis is still tainted by his failure, alongside Tsipras, to stand firm against the Troika. His confused programme of tweaking capitalism through various financial reforms also failed to convince voters that he offers a way forward for workers and youth.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The only party on the left to have improved their vote – from around 5% to 7%, is the KKE, the Greek Communist Party. Their campaign at least reflected the anger of Greek workers and correctly warned that whichever of the three main parties - ND, Syriza and PASOK – formed the next government, they would carry out the cuts and attacks demanded by capitalism. The KKE could now use their position to build a genuine mass workers’ party leading the struggles that will be necessary under another right-wing conservative government. But that would mean them being prepared to build a united front with other trade unionists and socialists in a joint struggle to defend living standards.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Without such a party challenging the parties of capitalism, Mitsotakis has been able to persuade most voters – that is out of those who could bring themselves to vote for anybody - that he was the ‘best of a bad bunch’. These voters will be hoping against hope that Mitsotakis’ promises to restore ‘stability’ to the weak Greek economy will be kept. Sadly, given the perilous state of both European and world capitalism, those hopes could soon be dashed.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Mitsotakis also sought to win away voters from the only other party that has ended up with MPs, the far-right “Hellenic Solution” party, by making clear that he was going to be “tough” on preventing refugees entering Greece from Turkey. What this means in practice was shown just before the election when footage was revealed showing refugees being forcibly taken from the island of Lesbos and left at sea in an inflatable boat to be picked up by the Turkish coastguard.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The final results mean that Mitsotakis would be able to form a coalition government if he sought the support of those far-right MPs or, alternatively, some of the PASOK careerists. However, he has already indicated that he is likely to wait for a second round, where different rules apply that give “bonus” MPs to the biggest party. Mitsotakis will feel confident that ND will then be able to form a majority government of their own.
</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What’s certain is that these election results show that Greek workers and youth, just like the working-class globally, need to build determined mass political parties that are prepared to stand firm when faced with the inevitable attacks that will come from global capitalism.</span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-65832499103232963042023-03-29T13:56:00.002+01:002023-03-29T13:56:36.885+01:00Growing debt and inflation, declining productivity ... a crisis is on the cards<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As trade unionists and socialists we need to understand a little economics </b>– so we can have an idea of the terrain on which we are going to be fighting on – are we facing a period of slump, or of upswing? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVf89Bz0s387EWnXb6YFacbiQbg9ItfzNRDTg-CGQ3S375EC9FjuePGjELsa_DanYakwI7XSTP3OXcuiRoQ0o4Q0aGQMTwmHV_2zzC3VPp6hODagXoMYfs85RvgtkWse6yeHdSP1_X9QD5U3tofOIwLcM7RtkBfHMtxOWovRF4U6CbrQPia9zQgOhg-Q/s615/00013-borse-615x381.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="615" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVf89Bz0s387EWnXb6YFacbiQbg9ItfzNRDTg-CGQ3S375EC9FjuePGjELsa_DanYakwI7XSTP3OXcuiRoQ0o4Q0aGQMTwmHV_2zzC3VPp6hODagXoMYfs85RvgtkWse6yeHdSP1_X9QD5U3tofOIwLcM7RtkBfHMtxOWovRF4U6CbrQPia9zQgOhg-Q/w640-h397/00013-borse-615x381.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Based on articles and analysis from the CWI -<a href="https://www.socialistworld.net/category/theory-analysis/economy/world-economy/" target="_blank"> read more here</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Of course, in today’s crisis-hit capitalism, any upswings will only be feeble – so you may not even have noticed that the world economy grew slightly - by about 3% - in 2022. It wasn’t long ago that the capitalist economists’ official predictions were for stronger growth in 2023 – but now the World Bank is sounding alarm bells, warning about a “decade of lost growth” with growth bumping along at only 2% or so until 2030.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">War in Ukraine may have added to the problems, but the World Bank admits that the main problem is declining productivity. Productivity - a measure of how much employees produce for every hour worked - is declining worldwide, but not because people are working less. It’s down to a lack of investment by the capitalists in new technique, alongside worsening health, and worker dissatisfaction - also by-products of capitalist failure. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The historical justification for capitalism was that it was able to develop the productive forces. Yes, it was done at the expense of the working-class and the planet, but the capitalists historically reinvested profits to develop industry, science, and technique. Today, most don’t even do that. Because their system is a system designed to maximise profit, rather than maximise production, if they can’t make a profit, they don’t invest.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But some capitalist economists - like Nouriel Roubini - mirroring a Marxist analysis but from a capitalist standpoint - are warning that things could be worse still for the world economy - a lot worse. He has described the current banking crisis as the “beginning of the blood bath”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Our analysis is also that the collapse of Signature and Silicon Valley Banks (SVB) in the US and Credit Suisse in Switzerland signals a new phase of accelerated crisis. A global economic recession in 2023/24 is now a strong possibility - although nothing is ever certain. What’s certain is that we need to be ready for the dramatic economic, social, and political consequences which would flow from this. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>To explain why this crisis is on the cards – let’s go back to some basics</b> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">First of all, Marxist economics explains that capitalism is an unplanned system, with the threat of slump and recession always present. In fact, the real question is not why capitalism goes into crisis but how sometimes it manages to avoid doing so! </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Capitalism is based on the systematic exploitation of the working-class. You are only ever paid in wages a fraction of the total value that has been produced by your labour. The rest, our “unpaid labour” is turned into profit by the capitalist class. However, to realise that profit they need to be able to sell what we have produced for them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In outline, the main problem the capitalists have is finding a profitable market to sell their goods. They need to make sure they aren’t just sitting in a warehouse but are sold and turned into profit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism is that the working-class, with our limited wages in our pockets, are a good chunk of the potential market available to the capitalists to sell their wares to. But, because they have ripped us off by not paying us the full value of what we have produced, we don’t have enough money to buy them all back. There’s also a limit as to how many luxury goods that the capitalists want to buy from each other too. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So there is always a tendency within capitalism towards ‘overproduction’ – not because people don’t need those goods – the global poor and destitute desperately need them – but because more goods are produced than can be sold at a profit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, with unsold goods sitting in their warehouses, the bosses cut back production and try to wait it out until some of their competitors go bust & they can start producing for a profit again. In broad brush terms, that’s the boom-slump cycle of capitalism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This contradiction can be overcome for a while if the capitalists reinvest their surplus back into production. Indeed, if they are to continue to stay ahead of their rivals, they have to invest in new technique – into buying new machinery that can produce things more quickly, and therefore cheaply, than their competitors. That’s essentially what happened in the post-war boom. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But, as the profits that the capitalists could generate from investing in production shrank (and Marx predicted that their rate of profit would tend to fall), increasingly they turned to speculation to make a quick buck instead – creating the kind of bubbles that burst at the time of the 2007/8 crash. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The trigger of the current financial turmoil is not the same as in 2007/8. That was primarily caused by dodgy loans and speculative bubbles reflected in the subprime mortgage catastrophe. The recent crisis has been triggered by different factors, in an entirely different world situation, above all the hiking of interest rates by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB), and other central banks in an effort to control inflation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the underlying issues are the same – capitalism has become an increasingly parasitic system, seeking to generate wealth through financial wheeler-dealing rather than investing for growth. Alternatively, wealth is simply being hoarded, rather than being invested in new production.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The global financial system</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To understand what is happening at present, particularly the rise of inflation, it’s also important to have an idea of the role of credit and borrowing in the world financial system.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Credit developed as an essential part of capitalism. While the bosses’ potential profits are still sat in the warehouse as unsold goods, and/or because they need to get ahead of their rivals by buying new machinery, they need to be able to borrow money from the banks to tide themselves over until their profits are generated. And the banks obviously make sure they grab a part of the surplus generated by our unpaid labour through charging interest on those loans.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But, particularly when profit rates are declining from manufacturing, a bigger and bigger chunk of the capitalist class have realised that they can make more money out of finance capital – out of interest payments and rents, as well as speculation in shares and other financial instruments etc. And, as profit is king – that’s what they do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But, in order to generate more profit, banks realised that they could take a gamble on lending out more money than they have actually got coming in. As long as all their depositors don’t claim all their money back at once, the trick works – but – and that’s essentially what happened with the recent bank collapses – if they do, then the bank can’t pay them all back and quickly goes bust.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In the recent banking collapses, news spread that the ‘bonds’ that these banks had invested in were falling in value as interest rates went up. Depositors suddenly started demanding their money back. Although this was now all done via computer screens, rather than customers banging on the doors of the bank, they were nevertheless classic examples of how a run on a bank develops. Credit Suisse saw 10 billion euros per day withdrawn in the run-up to its collapse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The ruling classes were prepared to spend massive resources to bail out these banks, desperate to prevent a meltdown. In reality, they have, at best, bought time, and further bank collapses are a near certainty in the coming period – especially with interest rates still high – as I’ll try to explain.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">While the US is one nation state, the EU, should it be confronted with a bigger banking crisis, could be conflicted by one of capitalism’s other main limitations – the interests of different nation states. The cost of further bailouts could easily spark conflict between the different governments of the Eurozone, all of which have differing economies and banking systems.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The collapse of Credit Suisse, in particular, is a significant development – which is probably why they’ve kept it out of the headlines as much as possible. This was not a minor bank. Credit Suisse was a major pillar of the global financial system. Its takeover by UBS points to another tendency that may develop further as more banks collapse – an even greater monopolisation of the banking system in some countries. The massive conglomerate that has now been created is equal to 220% of the GDP of Switzerland. Of course, it also means the scale of further bailouts would be astronomical!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And it’s worth saying a bit more about these ‘bonds’. A bond is essentially a guarantee from a government that it will pay back a loan at a guaranteed rate of interest. But, as interest rates rose, the old bonds that these banks held were suddenly not as attractive and their prices fell. Why buy a bond that promises a 2% return if you can buy the latest bond that now promises a 5% return? And there will be many more banks holding these lower return bonds too and fearing the consequences.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Bonds are ways that governments can raise money to cover their debts – so they can keep spending. Essentially, bonds are governments printing money without any production to back them up. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The massive “quantitative easing” – injection of money into the world economy after the 2007/8 crash – was part of the same kind of process. This injection of ‘cheap money’ was repeated again to get countries through the Covid pandemic. It’s another part of the house of cards that is going to come tumbling down at some point. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Global debt and inflation</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The lengths to which this confidence trick has gone are shown by the fact that at the end of 2021, combined global private and public debt was something like 350% of world GDP – so the combined debt is 3.5 times more in value than the global economy actually produces. That is unsustainable. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">With rising interest rates making the costs of paying back those debts even higher, then it’s inevitable that a series of nation states will be forced to default on their loans. The UN predicts about 70 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America will do so over the next few years. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We’ve already seen in Sri Lanka how, on the one hand, the crisis that accompanies a country going bankrupt sparks mass uprisings but also, now that a deal has been done with the IMF, any ‘bailout’ comes with a heavy price of harsh interest payments, privatisation and asset-stripping, and cuts to pay and jobs to make the working-class pay that price.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Demands for non-payment of the debts, nationalisation of the banks and capital controls to stop the bosses removing their wealth – as were raised for Greece at the time of their debt crisis – will become increasingly important.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the major imperialist countries face similar debt issues too – including the US and China. Following 2007/8, world capitalism was able to benefit from the growth and developments of the Chinese economy, underwritten by relations with the US. This “escape route” is not present today. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Britain – as ever one of the sickest of the capitalist patients – now has a public sector debt of over 100% of GDP, the worst since the early 60s – and that was debt caused by spending on WW2. The Treasury will have to raise money through selling bonds at an unprecedented level to cover that debt – about £240 billion a year for the next five years. That’s why Mark Carney, when Governor of the Bank of England, said the UK was “reliant on the kindness of strangers” – money-grabbing investors willing to buy these bonds on the promise of a high return. But, just like the banks that failed, if investors decide the UK is too risky an investment, the chickens will come home to roost.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But printing money without production to back it up also means that money loses its value – this is what causes inflation, not our wage increases as the bosses would like to pretend. The pumping in of trillions of dollars over the last decade or so, without production increases to match, are the root cause of current global inflation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The standard response of capitalist economists to rising inflation is – as we have seen – to put up interest rates – the idea being that it discourages borrowing and reduces the amount of money sloshing around the economy. But essentially that also means even less investment, paving the way to a recession. So, a furious struggle is now taking place between different wings of the ruling class over what they should do. Those who are most worried about rising prices are saying interest rates must go up, while those worried about a sharp recession are saying they should be brought down. In reality, they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Interest rates aren’t a magic wand that they can wave to control chaotic capitalism. Whatever decision they make, crisis is unavoidable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, nobody should ever say that a ‘final crisis’ of capitalism is on its way – and all we have to do is to sit back and wait for its collapse. No, unless overthrown and replaced with a rational planned socialist economic system, the world’s capitalist classes will continue to stagger on – flailing around like a bunch of drunks as they throw punches at the working-class, at the environment, and at each other through trade wars and actual regional wars.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We are in a new period of increasing geopolitical and economic fragmentation, trade and currency wars, inflation, stagnation, climate crisis, and corporate and sovereign debt crises.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">None of the measures taken have helped lift the confidence of the bourgeoisie, as they hoped. The massive hoarding, rather than investment, that started to take place before the run on the banks, continues. The current crisis in the banking sector will further tend to strengthen this trend.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Major problems with supply chains will also continue, fuelling the inflationary pressures. This will intensify as the trend towards regional blocks increases, unlike the 1990s era of globalisation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Prepare for dramatic events</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The capitalist strategists may be able to take some empirical measures to ‘kick the can’ down the road, for a time. Yet they are running out of road. A recession or deep depression, at some stage, is unavoidable, given the contradictions present in the system.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There could be a significant crash, or, on the other hand, it may be more of a train crash in slow motion. After all, the crisis in 2007/8, like many other financial and economic crises, developed not as a single act. It was preceded by a series of lesser crises in the months beforehand. What is certain, however, is that the global financial system, like capitalism, as a whole, is in a systemic crisis. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As always, the capitalists will try to make sure it is working people globally who suffer and are made to pay for the effects of the sheer brutality of capitalism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We need to be prepared for dramatic changes that can arise from these processes. It will result in massive polarisation and heightened conflict. Bitter class battles are already breaking out, reflected in the heightened class struggle in Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The recession in 2008 eventually gave rise to the mass movements around Bernie Sanders in the US, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and saw mass revolts and upheavals in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But it also led to the election of Trump in the US, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and other reactionary regimes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The far-right populists will attempt to capitalise on the current banking crisis and attack the “bailouts” of the bankers. Already sections of the Republican Party in the US have attacked the bailout of the “rich techies” who had their funds deposited in SVB. The fear of further banking collapses can be very powerful, especially in countries where the trauma of what this meant historically is part of mass consciousness. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The right-wing populists can play on this, as we have begun to see in Switzerland. The onset of recession will pose the threat of the far right using the financial crisis, immigration, and other issues to try and strengthen their support. A deep recession can also “stun” sections of the working class, should unemployment rocket, along with other attacks on living standards. However, it can also lead to crucial political radicalization and polarization.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A struggle to help fight the ravages of inflation through the establishment of a living wage, adjusted to match inflation and price increases, is essential. But who decides what inflation is? In the UK, is it official CPI at 10%, RPI at 14% or the actual level of increases on basics like milk which is more like 30%? We should raise demands for committees of workers, consumers and trade unionists to determine in each country what the real rate of inflation is, instead of the fiddled inflation figures of capitalist economists and politicians. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The building of mass workers’ parties with a socialist alternative programme to capitalism, to offer a way out of the contradictions and dilemmas of the profit system, is posed even more urgently as this crisis is unfolding. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What is clear more than ever is the need to take the huge wealth, resources, assets, and power that rests in the hands of the capitalist class into public ownership through nationalisation, under democratic workers’ control – with majority trade union representation at all levels, drawn from workers, including from the unions in the industry and the wider working class and labour movement, with the government also represented. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Socialist nationalisation would be just a first step towards the unification of all the banks and major industries into one democratically controlled system, so we can reorganise society on socialist lines, to provide what is needed: jobs, services, health, and housing, for all. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That way we, and our families and friends, and the workers and poor across the globe, would be able to live a decent enjoyable life with the freedom to develop, learn and explore the many untapped talents and potential that exist among us - by ending the chaos of unplanned capitalism. </span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-41098677872041749462023-03-16T15:18:00.004+00:002023-03-16T15:18:17.660+00:00After the Budget Day Strikes - What Next?<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Yesterday's Budget Day march in Central London was another enthusiastic show of strength from tens of thousands of striking teachers, civil servants, junior doctors and more - but, after these latest strikes, what next?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Z4KfcQTrcM" width="320" youtube-src-id="_Z4KfcQTrcM"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Government is trying to act ‘tough’, hoping they can sit things out until our momentum is lost. But we can show them that they have made yet another misjudgement! Strike action has been solidly supported so far. The Tories are under pressure. We can force them to meet our demands, but only if we now escalate our action. We need to show that we have a serious plan for winning this dispute, whilst also recognising the pressures on members of ongoing action.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The NEU National Executive meets on March 25th to confirm what program for escalation will be put to the NEU Annual Conference at the start of April. The proposal below has been drafted by Socialist Party members within the NEU to provide a concrete suggestion for discussion. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We make no claim to have come up with a definitive plan – far from it – we would welcome any feedback, so that, hopefully alongside others on the NEU Executive, a plan for escalation can be agreed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A plan for escalation</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Announce at NEU Annual Conference that the NEU is giving notice for further strike action:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For TWO DAYS at the start of the summer term (e.g. in the week beginning Mon. 24 April)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For THREE FURTHER DAYS in May, (e.g. in the week beginning Mon. 15 May) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Prepare for further extended action later in the summer term, which, by setting an appropriate timetable for a reballot, could also include NEU support staff members.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A plan to address genuine hardship</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Every NEU District should assess claims that have been made on its local strike fund so far and then agree what more needs to be added in order to support those members who might face genuine hardship through our next strike days – and make sure members know how to apply.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In order to boost strike funds, particularly if there are NEU Districts who have fewer reserves, an appeal should be put out to our supporters and the wider trade union movement for donations. The NEC should discuss if this could be administered through Regional Councils.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A plan to maximise pressure on the Government through co-ordinated action</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">5.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We should build a united front that acts to ramp up the pressure on Ministers to ‘pay up’ to fund the pay and conditions demands across all of the different disputes, alongside our demand that they ‘pay up’ for education. Co-ordination of our action with other unions who also need to force more funding from the Government – such as those also taking strike action alongside the NEU on 15 March – gives more impact to our action than our striking separately. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">6.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Therefore, the NEU National Executive should also write to the National Executives of all those unions who have a live strike mandate, proposing that a joint meeting of the NECs is urgently convened. That meeting should agree a strategy for co-ordinated action, including naming at least a first date when as many unions as possible take strike action together, with plans to build a maximum turnout at jointly organised rallies and demonstrations.</span></p><div><br /></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-12776570507143563252022-09-26T08:15:00.004+01:002022-09-26T08:18:50.215+01:00FAQs - why NEU members should vote for action<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>With the preliminary ballots for NEU Support Staff members, and in Sixth Form Colleges already open, the NEU's electronic vote for teachers in state schools opened this weekend. Already tens of thousands have voted. Now we all need to drive that vote up until we smash through the 50% threshold that will be needed in the further, fully postal ballot required to call a strike under the Tories' anti-union legislation. </b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOaVu1ohJw__u2lVUMe68b1RehfAfm4yL679C0qCg6iFOOPSYCK5emJsRJjJiIBLrwZ7KSQVmO8YgtvBx8M3_mpYs-XSAZccv_DVpaqp-FerVStrqB9PKd1pibAvkcnd5uu0VA8Q-izvhMFrHBUPurvPxTuJaLeW7fkZWI6JhghZo6RF5TIZrHWloiqQ/s2634/Pay%20Up%20School%20Staff.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2412" data-original-width="2634" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOaVu1ohJw__u2lVUMe68b1RehfAfm4yL679C0qCg6iFOOPSYCK5emJsRJjJiIBLrwZ7KSQVmO8YgtvBx8M3_mpYs-XSAZccv_DVpaqp-FerVStrqB9PKd1pibAvkcnd5uu0VA8Q-izvhMFrHBUPurvPxTuJaLeW7fkZWI6JhghZo6RF5TIZrHWloiqQ/s320/Pay%20Up%20School%20Staff.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Many members understand straight away why they need to vote for action but some may have a few queries before they do. Here's answers to four of the questions that I have come across in speaking to members in my District:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>WILL STRIKING MAKE ME LOOK BAD WITH MY HEAD AND PARENTS?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>No. There's no reason to feel awkward about taking strike action. It's your legal right to do so, as long as we win the ballot with a high enough turnout. Our action would be a national strike to campaign to win a fully-funded pay rise. It's not directed against your Head or your school, in fact it would help your school by making sure they had improved funding and fewer problems with retaining and recruiting staff.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Of course, parents will be inconvenienced by a strike but, as railworkers and postal workers have found when they have taken strike action over the summer, with everyone's cost of living rising, there's a widespread understanding that trade unions have no choice but to take action. We will also produce information for parents and governors so that they can read the facts about our campaign.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>CAN WE AFFORD TO STRIKE?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>With the cost of energy, transport, food and housing rising steeply, and inflation forecast to rise even further by 2023, can we afford not to? If we don't take action - especially when other unions are - that will only encourage this government to think they can keep cutting school budgets, holding down our pay, and piling on yet more scrutiny and workload.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Strike action has already won victories for trade unions in a number of local disputes. Even the threat of action has just won an improved pay offer for Scottish council workers - including school support staff - and over £400 million in extra funding to pay for it too.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>HOW CAN SCHOOLS AFFORD TO PAY MORE?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>The government's 'mini-budget' has shown it has money to spend - but it will need action to persuade them to direct some of it into education, instead of towards tax cuts for the wealthy. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>It's not a question of ‘either’ pay ‘or’ school funding - our campaign is to win both. </i></span><i style="font-family: arial;">So, don’t be put off voting for a pay rise because you fear school budgets won't be able to cope. The battles for better pay and for better school funding are two sides of the same coin. Strike action is the most powerful way of winning both.</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>CAN STRIKE ACTION WIN?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Yes. With support staff unions consulting over pay, and the NASUWT teaching union also talking about action, NEU members can vote for action with confidence that our action could be taken across school staff, and alongside other unions in the public and private sectors too. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>We won't be alone. With inflation rising, the government is under growing pressure to act. Our action can make it think again on pay.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So, keep talking to your colleagues and make sure everyone has voted - and voted YES to action. </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://socialistpartyscotland.org.uk/2022/09/16/scottish-teachers-massive-rejection-of-pay-insult/?" target="_blank">EiS members in Scotland</a> have just secured a </span><span style="font-family: arial;">78% turnout, with 91% voting in favour of strike action - can we do the same?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">You can download a Socialist Party in Education bulletin containing some of the key information about the ballots <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3QmYLbf%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0skbPeESyng2a6VI10R8AXn_gu_Mh2c-tFcLhCp4NAB7eydm5ysSTJU8g&h=AT1ytSq4FFklUd-gb6NN1o3kRh0eublgqCk4tKS4uO4nwV8u-JRNdLkWluaoKcY7zAZ9aKB4Jt9APBjyFVTy2HygHugyLKXfCtLdvN-UXgaDpxPUMJw3ww_NL8Jp6DcHVg&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT0UAsP2b8o0K3bbwjIEZbtJOZfHaS0P03dnIpA3EH_YFvYb65BfuuUHT5Ig_lyRN2aA0-9Me25v4ux00gAnxqtv6qypwlURJJlTTd2FCDNCGog6i5icgb50dRjOYAs0dEtLZ2aub9KoJVtrgfMXRut02y7Rfx76WmHD7wb_vbiF3OVojIR6gQ" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcWYZPxv0xUREcsd-2C8iIkPoL_IImOnMl4ruztUfWaedVhzqOBz3ITylBLrBu1pyQpdEVu38uj1OLw1JlaUFMeJraOfmixapCjLxjtnqBFw_wQLQsJ4OuNMVV3_iqV6edHWrV77Mb3Hq_QVDIBYWnIbeU5xJkaLNzLrvTI0rDCIPXI-tvpo0qXa7vFQ/s1266/SPinEd%20Bulletin%202%20Sept%202022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="889" data-original-width="1266" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcWYZPxv0xUREcsd-2C8iIkPoL_IImOnMl4ruztUfWaedVhzqOBz3ITylBLrBu1pyQpdEVu38uj1OLw1JlaUFMeJraOfmixapCjLxjtnqBFw_wQLQsJ4OuNMVV3_iqV6edHWrV77Mb3Hq_QVDIBYWnIbeU5xJkaLNzLrvTI0rDCIPXI-tvpo0qXa7vFQ/w640-h450/SPinEd%20Bulletin%202%20Sept%202022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-31380577965692529622022-03-24T17:37:00.003+00:002022-03-25T08:26:01.093+00:00Listen to the voices of protest in Blackpool<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Watch a full-length video of the protests</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> <a href="https://youtu.be/A5tbHCFGWao" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>On a welcome day of sunshine</b>, hundreds of trade unionists,
NHS campaigners , RMT and P&O strikers and disability and anti-fracking activists
marched in Blackpool on Saturday 19 March. With samba band and trade union and
climate banners prominent, we marched from the Comedy Carpet opposite Blackpool
Tower to the Winter Gardens where the Tories were holding their spring
conference.</span></p>
<p class="MsoHeader"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This was a chance to protest against the Tories ruthless
squeeze on livings standards and their attempt to make workers pay the cost of
the Covid through a cost of living crisis. Darren Proctor of the RMT union
spoke powerfully on behalf of a contingent of P& O strikers ; the RMT and
now Nautilus union both in dispute with P & O Ferries since their ruthless
‘fire and hire’ and the sacking of hundreds of their workers. Darren received
rapturous applause for his call for solidarity.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCJB2_dd4_J2eJH5KRair47TmFUhKskq5BWiX9ZK77FUDM_sxYLNyEZxAyUs10W6j2WFs6bJYINxUMlTILB5gO2bQrRoCmImL6zsLK9fp20Oapr9Nkzete7ay4bdXgBQM8SohEghKuUTVhwzTwa-JNncUfXIx1ALCjCB9wl5Vhi5-WvGweFhxGFDE4gw/s4032/PXL_20220319_122043827.MP.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCJB2_dd4_J2eJH5KRair47TmFUhKskq5BWiX9ZK77FUDM_sxYLNyEZxAyUs10W6j2WFs6bJYINxUMlTILB5gO2bQrRoCmImL6zsLK9fp20Oapr9Nkzete7ay4bdXgBQM8SohEghKuUTVhwzTwa-JNncUfXIx1ALCjCB9wl5Vhi5-WvGweFhxGFDE4gw/w400-h300/PXL_20220319_122043827.MP.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Ian Hodson from BFAWU at the Saturday rally</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoHeader"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The rally gathered outside the Tory conference and was
chaired by Lynn Goodwin , President of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Trades Council
BFWTUC with speakers including the Trades Council secretary Ken Cridland and
others from the various campaigns represented. Socialist Party members who spoke included Chris Baugh, Jenny Hurley, Marion Lloyd and myself.</span></p><p class="MsoHeader"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjguARqMPLmo9K6ZT1onmRh1QvJ8FHR3s9RLvCd6Wsf8ydsXcb2AqcZ3Zb-MElpoSUVm3_V-wUFSnGubSi97OpoV8ptC2L_xdEwfzsIfWPx2Qq4Cavppcu8YkL-JQJdKtITwpxbgTntiJiJCi3y0eT_qRMaOLPU8dXcqHo4PUkuH66-7tyu40Rhc3HmnA/s4032/image_67515393.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjguARqMPLmo9K6ZT1onmRh1QvJ8FHR3s9RLvCd6Wsf8ydsXcb2AqcZ3Zb-MElpoSUVm3_V-wUFSnGubSi97OpoV8ptC2L_xdEwfzsIfWPx2Qq4Cavppcu8YkL-JQJdKtITwpxbgTntiJiJCi3y0eT_qRMaOLPU8dXcqHo4PUkuH66-7tyu40Rhc3HmnA/w300-h400/image_67515393.JPG" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Pointing at the Tories in the Winter Gardens</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoHeader"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The TUC had called a national mobilisation outside the Tory
party conference on 19 March in Blackpool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In an unfortunate impression of The Grand Old Duke of York, they decided
to call it off three weeks later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
the need to protest against the Tories was as strong as ever. So through the
BFWTUC, alongside Lancashire trades councils, Unite branches in the region, NHS
protestors who also<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>provided an ad-van
which was driven round the town calling for opposition to the Health Care Bill,
climate activists involved in the successful anti-fracking protests in the area
all came together and decided the protest should go ahead.</span></p><p class="MsoHeader"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3iHiA3XtDoF58g5PkXbPnYZVKziMJpUs61DN0jTqkcUElRPlg9U4x3JQXfcD9p5lZCfrOM98QdwbG6Oek630s4tDqHbF8iA8TR7oW0T-em48g13ytHNnmhrOJNdDUPEiAwkWhj4yX2L26z1lsO8oxLv4Chmh61jiQ8Vpe-vYhcRxIdeOJqTOkCl9hQ/s1455/On%20the%20March.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="818" data-original-width="1455" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3iHiA3XtDoF58g5PkXbPnYZVKziMJpUs61DN0jTqkcUElRPlg9U4x3JQXfcD9p5lZCfrOM98QdwbG6Oek630s4tDqHbF8iA8TR7oW0T-em48g13ytHNnmhrOJNdDUPEiAwkWhj4yX2L26z1lsO8oxLv4Chmh61jiQ8Vpe-vYhcRxIdeOJqTOkCl9hQ/w400-h225/On%20the%20March.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Marching through Blackpool on Saturday 19 March</span></td></tr></tbody></table></p>
<p class="MsoHeader"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Blackpool is a famous destination for working class
holidaymakers that has seen gradual economic decline from the seventies onwards.
A 2019 government report showed eight of the ten poorest neighbourhoods in
England are in the town of Blackpool. With Middlesbrough, Blackpool<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>has the highest level of child poverty. Yet in the past decade a massive £180 million has been cut from the Blackpool council budget.</span></p><p class="MsoHeader"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvHqSALRwEx4r616P5sHO8KooahWRToX4qO6vevsi1UBWywP9KsUIuueZVN-eRmZD_5wPdB4UNN2Basasn7J3WEnz_-OdvtYy5DA_uhk6iOSLfJxG0xSsLN4sejrqz1ByE4M2V9gOlUWAeeitp4q9lTOxTvBKe2pvN9HFom3E0jrpOY7ToRffQxr42Dg/s4032/PXL_20220319_111313800.MP.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvHqSALRwEx4r616P5sHO8KooahWRToX4qO6vevsi1UBWywP9KsUIuueZVN-eRmZD_5wPdB4UNN2Basasn7J3WEnz_-OdvtYy5DA_uhk6iOSLfJxG0xSsLN4sejrqz1ByE4M2V9gOlUWAeeitp4q9lTOxTvBKe2pvN9HFom3E0jrpOY7ToRffQxr42Dg/w300-h400/PXL_20220319_111313800.MP.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Sacked P&O workers on the march</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoHeader"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Austerity in the form of deep cuts in health, local
government and civil service jobs, combined with the vigorous enforcement of
DWP sanctions policy, has had a devastating effect, particularly on the poorest
and most vulnerable families in Blackpool.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The TUC were wrong to cancel the demonstration. The protest
defied the most optimistic expectations and had an impact not seen in Blackpool
for many years. While it has helped build support for trade unionism , a living
wage of £15 an hour and the fight for climate jobs rather than any renewed
attempts to start fracking, the protest confirmed the need for the TUC to call
for mass protests around the March/Demo they have called for 18 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>June.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5tbHCFGWao" width="320" youtube-src-id="A5tbHCFGWao"></iframe></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-64977980379819160062022-02-18T10:13:00.002+00:002022-02-18T10:32:16.690+00:00We need a timescale for a ballot for action to win on pay<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For the last few weeks, NEU Branch Officers and school
reps have been working hard to encourage teacher members to respond to an
online survey about pay. In the end around 70,000 members, a little under 30%
of those who had been polled, responded to the texts and emails sent to them
nationally.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This was a very good initial turnout, particularly
given that a turn towards campaigning on pay had only recently been made by the Union. A 0%
‘pay freeze’ had been imposed on teachers paid under the School Teachers Pay
and Conditions Document for the previous 2021 pay award without the Union
responding in the way that is now being done. Despite the short lead-in to the
survey, 74% of those voting were already saying they would support strike
action over pay.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Two NEU branches, East Riding and Redbridge, even managed
to exceed the 50% turnout that would eventually be needed in a formal strike
ballot under the anti-trade union legislation, showing how other branches could
also improve their turnout with the right approach, support and organisation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Executive agrees we will need to ballot – but
when?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">On Thursday, 10<sup>th</sup> February, a special
meeting of the NEU Executive met to discuss the overall response and to plan
the next steps in the pay campaign. Important steps were agreed but, in my
view, a key step was missing, and that was to agree a clear timescale for
proceeding to a ballot for strike action. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A timescale for a ballot is not just a small detail,
it is a key part to any pay campaign. Of course, NEU reps and officers can, and
will, encourage members to take part in the demonstrations, rallies and other
activities that were agreed by everyone on the Executive. However, in all those
activities, it will be important to explain to members that we will need to
vote for, and firmly enact, strike action if we are really to influence this Government
and warn off its big business backers calling for Ministers to maintain ‘wage
restraint’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A timescale provides a sense of urgency and an
assurance to members that it’s important for them to attend the demos and
rallies, because they are part of a serious campaign to win our pay demands - of
an 8% pay rise over both of the next two years across all points on the pay
scales. It also gives a clear idea to busy branch officers, reps and staff as
to what priority needs to be given to updating addresses, holding meetings and
other preparations. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">When I heard that the Executive had not agreed any
timescale, and posted criticism on my personal Facebook page last week, I received
angry responses from members of the majority ‘NEU Left’ group on the Executive including
accusations that I was ‘misrepresenting’ what was agreed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This has since been followed by an article on the <a href="https://www.neuleft.org/2022/02/12/neu-left-bog-12-feb-2022/">NEU left blog</a>
that criticises “some in the union who don’t support [the agreed] strategy,
calling instead for an immediate indicative ballot. Some of those people have
said that the Executive have ruled out strike action. Nothing could be further
from the truth. We question the motivation behind this spreading of
misinformation”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Now that’s quite a serious accusation and, although
nobody is specifically named, presumably aimed in part at me. So let me explain
further as to why, no, I am not spreading misinformation [on the contrary, as I
explain below, no Executive amendment actually called for an “immediate
indicative ballot”] but, yes, I am raising questions and concerns. I do so not
light-mindedly, but because, at a time when prices are rising so rapidly,
alongside pay cuts through national insurance increases, a failure to win on
pay would be so serious for so many members. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What was agreed by the Executive – and was voted down<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">What was agreed by the Executive was a commitment “to
put every effort nationally, regionally and locally to put ourselves in a position
to call and win a national ballot at the earliest possible opportunity”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">But the Executive still needs to clarify what
timescale they are looking at and how that relates to the timetable for the
Government and the Review Body to make decisions over teachers’ pay.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As has now become their standard practice, the
Government are likely to announce the next pay award in late July. But, this
time, they are going to impose a two-year pay award for 2022/3 and 2023/4. Therefore,
our strategy needs to have maximum impact before July.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaVfiRaYJ95mjwmpTVsVcor3FW3rIUW63fTAd76Kq3Fd9YXBtUngLmc5u0kC0PZ0jNosX2n7prR-EMQp66VEWbRxM-4CFDb8uhsvzRYx3CdN9J8czeGj-axdlFbMzBfyYKgMo9o15JQgQwUKsoQSUOz0K83G8OcLQtx5kd7BApDmebNoC6AwUf61Puvw=s1842" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="1842" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaVfiRaYJ95mjwmpTVsVcor3FW3rIUW63fTAd76Kq3Fd9YXBtUngLmc5u0kC0PZ0jNosX2n7prR-EMQp66VEWbRxM-4CFDb8uhsvzRYx3CdN9J8czeGj-axdlFbMzBfyYKgMo9o15JQgQwUKsoQSUOz0K83G8OcLQtx5kd7BApDmebNoC6AwUf61Puvw=w400-h279" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">Recognising this, a ballot timetable crafted to allow
strike action to take place in July was put to the February Executive. It
proposed that the next half-term, up until Easter, should be used to share best practice amongst reps and branches and
identifying areas in need of further support. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">Meetings, rallies and demonstrations, such as the one now called by the TUC
on 19 March, could be used to increase confidence and engagement, building on members' concrete experience of rising bills and falling incomes.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;">All these steps would be preparation for launching an indicative ballot from April’s Annual Conference. The indicative ballot would then have been followed by
an emergency National Executive meeting on 14 May, hopefully agreeing it was in
a position to move to the formal ballot needed to sanction strike action before
the end of term.</p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">However, this proposal was only supported by a
minority of Executive members. This decision effectively rules out any chance
of building for national strike action by
July. This, I believe, is a missed opportunity and presents a complication. The
Union will now have to take action to persuade the Government to reverse its
decision, rather than before it is made.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A clear announcement needed by the Union<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">I appreciate that the NEU Left majority on the
Executive believe the Union would not be ready to win the necessary turnout and
majority by July. But when do they think “the earliest possible opportunity”
will be? What timescale is the Union working towards?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The NEU left blog concludes that the agreed strategy
“will include moving to an indicative ballot – whether in the autumn term or
sooner if we judge the mood is strong enough and we can win it”. Leading NEU
Left member Alex Kenny has written to officers in London stating that “the fact
that we may be looking at a two year pay award gives us a longer timeframe over
which we can map this campaign”. But will a full ballot be launched early
enough to give members confidence that an inadequate two-year pay deal can be reversed,
and not become seen as a fait accompli? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Postponing a national ballot doesn’t guarantee generating
greater momentum, delay can also see it being lost. By constantly telling
activists that a majority can’t be won, and postponing action to some undefined
future date, there is a danger that some in the Union conclude that national
action can never be taken. Our strategy then becomes only one of building
workplace-by-workplace, following the Union’s long-term ‘VEVE orientation’, but
never brings members together in united action. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This would be a one-sided strategy that risks
demoralising activists and failing members. Of course, we need to build
workplace strength and rep density and organisation but the key drivers of pay,
workload and funding cannot be tackled at a workplace level alone, they require
national action. A serious campaign for a national ballot can help build at
workplace level and vice versa. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">After responding in such high numbers to the initial
survey, NEU members now need a clear message about how the Union intends to,
not just protest, but <u>win</u> on pay, reversing any two-year pay cuts
imposed on teachers in July. It also needs to make clear to support staff
members how we are planning to organise around their pay award as well. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Now that a timetable seeking to take national action
before the pay award is announced has been rejected, is it not now time to make
clear to members, and the Government, that the NEU will however ballot for
action in the autumn term if our pay demands are not met? Such an announcement
would give the whole union a timescale to build around.</span></p><p></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-39513338177081503802022-01-02T12:33:00.001+00:002022-01-02T12:36:02.348+00:00NEU Member Survey - say yes to action on pay<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3pJqbOD" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="3508" data-original-width="2480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiz8U2Prr0wTBrv9XbLluwx90_BT1tda3N09fpII3CY9iy3a2swCh6h3bC6zx_oAyk0wHDh-SsPozdHTdQ9QbgcQeMLybFnuR4G8syvxsj6WLd5e_t-lCEZccAK1_OBYXBszLMjUaeHQx2yW-rml-kuxP6nW5aH4LGbRlfghSGVXByGfu6wR0BuHqgJSw=w452-h640" width="452" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #1f4e79; line-height: 90%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>WORKLOAD AND INFLATION GOES UP, INCOMES FALL</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>This term promises to start just as last term finished</b><span><b>.</b> School staff will be under intolerable pressure from incessant workload and Covid absences. Yet, in return for all our efforts, our real incomes are sharply falling as the cost of living rises. Fuel prices are set to rise further, as are the costs of mortgage payments.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Many support staff and supply colleagues are already struggling. The hourly rate of a newly qualified teacher working 50-60 hours a week, but being paid less than £2,200 a month, is at minimum wage levels.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Years of below inflation pay awards show how little value is being placed on both educators and education by this Government. It’s time to demand change. WE DESERVE BETTER. EDUCATION DESERVES BETTER. </span></p><p><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>VOTE YES FOR ACTION IN THE NEU SURVEY</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Between now and July, the School Teachers’ Review Body will be deliberating over what pay increase they will recommend teachers get in September 2022. Once again, this Government will be telling them to keep any increase to a minimum. They certainly won’t be looking to match an inflation rate that could soon be as high as 6%. In short, we are set for another pay cut – unless we take action to win our pay demands.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The NEU Executive wants to know how strongly you feel about how badly educators are being treated. That’s why a survey is being sent out to the email address on your union record from 14 January. It’s vital that you, and as many of your colleagues as possible, return the survey and SAY YES TO ACTION ON PAY.</span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Download the flyer drafted by Socialist Party in Education for use by NEU Officers and Reps as a pdf, jpg or an editable word document from <a href="https://bit.ly/3pJqbOD">this folder</a></i></span></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-57070707394490906302021-12-14T12:26:00.004+00:002024-01-11T11:28:16.231+00:00Agency Workers Regulations - Myth Busters<h2 style="text-align: left;"></h2><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: xx-large;"><b>MYTH BUSTERS - What to say when you’re told you haven’t got a case … when you have!</b></span></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Download these posts as A4 leaflets:<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3s5gVWr" target="_blank">Myth Buster 1</a>, and<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3DNPl2t" target="_blank">Myth Buster 2</a>:</span></span></h2><p><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>MYTH ONE:</b></span></u></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3s5gVWr" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="3508" data-original-width="2480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghQwAX-aHYl_WU7ihiz26n_Euu6z7UEGiSBK8RoYGOq1tMmrgYDx5-cXDX24bkFKPyCiJf2VoJAyIPp49vDHdCAqL3Fwx8WonjCj9Q7CNrexilLrEvxUpqY4seBBDg4gZy61YmL7A_OMWraufQUXnf68LDGlB6yksFPFhdh2_O8mwRjRdpzhU30T9NHQ=w283-h400" width="283" /></a></span></u></div><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Schools can pay agency teachers what they like because ‘pay portability’ no longer applies”</span></u></h3><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When an agency teacher starts to raise their rights to be paid ‘to scale’ after 12 weeks</b>, under the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), they may well be told that they definitely haven’t got a case because ‘pay portability’ no longer applies. That phrase refers to legislation that was removed from the School Teachers’ Pay & Conditions Document (STPCD) in 2013.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That worsening of the STPCD means that permanent teachers starting work at a new school are no longer automatically entitled to be paid at least at the same salary point that they were on in their previous job. Academies have always been allowed to operate outside the STPCD in any case. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But none of this means that schools can automatically ignore the AWR and pay their agency teachers what they like after 12 weeks. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>What does official guidance say?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/841981/agency-workers-regulations-2010-guidance.pdf" target="_blank">main AWR guidance</a> for hirers of agency workers is issued by the ‘BEIS’ Government Department. It says:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“Deciding what “equal treatment” means will usually be a matter of common sense – the requirement is simply to treat the worker as if he or she had been recruited directly to the same job”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It also gives the following advice “where a hirer has pay scales or pay structures”:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>“A hirer has various pay scales to cover its permanent workforce, including its production line. An agency worker is recruited on the production line and has several years’ relevant experience. However the agency worker is paid at the bottom of the pay scale. Is this equal treatment?</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Yes, if the hirer would have started that worker at the bottom of the pay scale if recruiting him or her directly. But if the worker’s experience would mean starting further up the pay scale if recruited directly, then that is the entitlement.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i><b>Starter grades which apply primarily, or exclusively, to agency workers may not be compliant if not applied generally to direct recruits</b>”</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In short, if a school says it will only pay an agency teacher at, say, an M1 rate, then it will need to show that it also recruits new permanent staff at M1 too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Each case needs to be argued on the specific policy and/or practice in that school, not on the STPCD in general.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>What does the school policy say?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In order to help recruitment, many schools have retained ‘pay portability’ in their pay policies, despite the changes made to the STPCD.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A clear cut way to show that an AWR claim is justified is to show that the school’s own pay policy states that ‘pay portability’ applies and/or that previous experience is taken into account when recruiting new staff. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Rush v Academics Ltd 3202251/2020</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">With the right advice, Jenna Rush, an agency teacher working in a Multi Academy Trust in Outer London, used the wording of the Trust’s pay policy to successfully win her AWR claim.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Jenna was an experienced “post-threshold” teacher returning to work after a career break. She taught for most of the 2019/20 academic year at three primary schools run by the Arbor Trust. <b>Her pay rate through ‘Academics Ltd’ agency was £140 a day, including holiday pay</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In April 2020, she found out about the AWR and queried her pay rate. The agency agreed to adjust her pay, but only to the STPCD rate for an M1 Outer London teacher - £145.41 a day. <b>Jenna Rush argued that, under the AWR, after 12 weeks she should have been paid at the U1 daily rate for Outer London, £212.40</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>She won!</b> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/ms-j-rush-v-a-day-consultants-ltd-t-slash-a-academics-ltd-3202251-slash-2020" target="_blank">An Employment Tribunal</a> ruled that:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“There is nothing in the Regulations that says that an agency worker, regardless of their skills and experience, should be treated as standing in the position of a newly qualified worker, once they have completed their 12 weeks employment. The question is what was the Claimant’s entitlement, with all her skills and years of experience, had the Trust recruited her directly for the post of qualified Primary Art Teacher”.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Nothing in the evidence supports the position that her entitlement was to M1”</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The Trust’s policy states as follows: ‘The school is committed to the principle of pay portability and will apply this principle in practice when making all new appointments’ ”</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It is this Tribunal’s judgment that [Ms Rush] is entitled to remedy for her successful complaint of unlawful deduction of wages. [She] should have been paid at U1 for the period 1 January 2020 until the date she left in July 2020. As she has already been paid at M1 level for that period, the Claimant is entitled to be paid the difference between M1 and U1”.</i> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What if the school policy isn’t clear? </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The Rush vs Academics Ltd claim was certainly helped by the Arbor Trust policy specifically referring to ‘the principle of pay portability’. But what if the school pay policy isn’t that clear-cut? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>A Tribunal won’t just look at policy, it will also look at the actual practice being carried out in the school, Trust or Local Authority for setting the pay of newly appointed staff. The key question is always: ‘if the school had been recruiting the agency teacher directly, what pay point would they have been awarded?’</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A school can’t assert that “we can pay you what we want” if an agency teacher can show that, in practice, when it recruits permanent staff, it <u>does</u> take experience into account and starts them at higher points on its pay scale. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">If they say it’s individually negotiated, then why hasn’t that taken place with agency teachers? As the Rush Tribunal states <i>“[She] was entitled to have the benefit of a conversation with the [Agency] and the Trust at the 12 week mark as to what would have been the appropriate wage for her. She was denied that benefit”</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In practice, how many schools appoint all their new recruits to the bottom of their pay scale? Very few, if any, because they wouldn’t be able to recruit to their vacancies! However, the more evidence that can be provided to support the teacher’s case, the stronger the claim can be.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Useful evidence for the agency teacher and their trade union rep to gather can include:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>School pay policy</b> - even if it doesn’t mention ‘pay portability’ specifically, what does it say about how starting rates for new recruits are agreed? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Adverts</b> - from the school or the wider Trust/Local Authority that show appointments to permanent teaching posts are being made at higher points on the scale. (For example, Jenna Rush provided, as additional evidence, the advert the Trust used to recruit a new Art Teacher after she ceased working there. It included the full salary range from M1 – U3).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Evidence from other teachers</b> - about what pay rates they were appointed to, about the practice in school for recognising experience.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">***</span></p><p><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>MYTH TWO:</b></span></u></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="https://bit.ly/3DNPl2t" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="3508" data-original-width="2480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzYtbKhP8sjmkrnWrFlm-lwRacqAi_wrvDeB0fCY7ZmOrz45E6e06pbLtB9LzYzzY69q2sG6ZqaX-N8_x91R7_cr9dzs8w5us658Wb367oJ1aE8WGfMCxj438HW7OWDF3E9d540iEOC2JWapCXWiuTVV6B5oRSJ4CPIW-pN-gc6GghISNvE8A_Sm5A5g=w283-h400" width="283" /></a></b></span></u></div><p></p><p></p><h3><u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Sc</span></u><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><u>hools can pay agency teachers at lower rates because they don’t carry out a permanent teacher’s duties”</u></span></h3><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>When an agency teacher starts to raise their rights to be paid ‘to scale’ after 12 weeks,</b> under the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), some schools and/or agencies will argue that they have no such right because a supply teacher doesn’t do ‘the same work’ as permanent teachers. These claims are excuses designed to keep down the costs of employing a qualified teacher and deny them their AWR rights.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The teacher - and their union rep - should stick to their guns and demand the pay to which they are entitled. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What do some agencies say?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>“If an agency worker has worked at your school for 12 weeks but only on a daily supply basis, it’s unlikely that AWR will be applicable. The worker will invariably be undertaking a substantially different role each time they come to your school and should not, therefore, be entitled to equality of pay under the AWR”. ‘PK Education’ website</i><b><i>.</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The example above, taken from one agency’s website, is typical of the kind of<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">arguments that are made. Whatever the exact words used, they all boil down to the same claim - that an agency teacher is carrying out a very different role to a permanent teacher, and so isn’t entitled to the same pay and conditions.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What does the law say?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Section 5 of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/93/regulation/5/made" target="_blank">Agency Workers Regulations 2010</a> sets out how, after the qualifying period of 12 weeks, an agency worker is entitled to the same basic pay and conditions as they would have received if they had been recruited directly. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In order to establish those entitlements, <b>the Regulations refer to “a comparable employee … engaged in the same or broadly similar work</b>”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Of course, an agency teacher’s duties might not be exactly identical to those of a permanent classroom teacher with, say, a tutor group. On the other hand, agency staff have pressures on them that a permanent teacher doesn’t have to face, often having to learn and adapt at short notice to different systems operating in different assignments. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Above all, the “broadly similar work” that both the directly recruited and agency teacher carry out is clear - it’s classroom teaching - and the agency teacher is entitled to be paid as such.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What about official guidance?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/841981/agency-workers-regulations-2010-guidance.pdf" target="_blank">main AWR guidance</a> for hirers of agency workers is issued by the ‘BEIS’ Government Department. It says:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“<i>It is not necessary to look for a comparator. Deciding what “equal treatment” means will usually be a matter of common sense - the requirement is simply to treat the worker as if he or she had been recruited directly to the same job. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>Equal treatment … covers basic working and employment conditions. They are those which are ordinarily included in relevant contracts (or associated documents such as pay scales … ) of direct recruits</i>”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The pay and conditions that must be applied under the AWR are those that ordinarily apply in that school - i.e. the standard pay scales that apply to direct recruits. For agency teachers, the entitlement is to the teachers’ pay scales applying in that school.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What about “specified work” ? </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Some schools and agencies argue that agency teachers are not carrying out “specified work” so aren’t entitled to be paid as teachers. They may refer to this advice from the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/550123/Agency_Workers_Regulations_-_1_Sept_2016.pdf" target="_blank">DfE guidance on the Agency Workers Regulations:</a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">“<u>Teaching Pupils.</u> If the school asks a temporary work agency to provide a teacher to carry out specified work in a school and the person engaged to do the work is a qualified teacher they should be paid as a qualified teacher … “Specified work” means planning, preparing and delivering lessons and courses to pupils and assessing and reporting on the development, progress & attainment of pupils”. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There’s nothing in this advice that implies that agency teachers shouldn’t be paid on teachers’ pay scales. Far from it. It is saying that, if you are a qualified teacher, and you “teach pupils”, you should indeed be paid as a qualified teacher.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The idea of “Specified Work” comes from the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/762/regulation/5/made" target="_blank">Education (Specified Work) Regulations</a> first introduced in 2003 following the then Labour Government’s “Workforce Agreement” introducing the idea of “cover supervisors” to take on some short-term absence cover.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Many employers will have agreed pay scales for cover supervisors. But this is <u>not</u> the work carried out by someone engaged as an agency teacher and these are <u>not</u> the scales that should apply to them under the AWR.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Actively Teaching” </b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The <a href="https://neu.org.uk/advice/hltas-and-cover-supervisors" target="_blank">official '</a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://neu.org.uk/advice/hltas-and-cover-supervisors" target="_blank">WAMG Cover Supervision Guidance'</a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> made clear how ‘cover supervision’ differs from ‘active teaching’:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>“Cover supervision occurs when no active teaching is taking place and involves the supervision of pre-set learning activities in the absence of a teacher:</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>1. Supervising work that has been set in accordance with the school policy</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>2. Managing the behaviour of pupils whilst they are undertaking this work to ensure a constructive environment</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>3. Responding to any questions from pupils about process and procedures</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>4. Dealing with any immediate problems or emergencies according to the school’s policies and procedures</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>5. Collecting any completed work after the lesson and returning it to the appropriate teacher</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><i>6. Reporting back as appropriate using the school’s agreed referral procedures on the behaviour of pupils during the class, and any issues arising.”</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">An agency teacher is hired to ensure that far more than ‘supervision’, only responding to questions ‘about process’, is taking place. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As a qualified teacher, they will be ‘actively teaching’, answering questions about ideas, explaining concepts, delivering lessons, assessing progress. They will indeed be carrying out activities that constitute “specified work” under the Regulations. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">To qualify for the AWR, the agency teacher will have been working on an assignment for over 12 weeks. Of course they will have been planning and preparing in order to be able to carry out their teaching work. Yes, they may be drawing on plans and resources provided to them, but that is simply recommended practice to reduce unnecessary workload.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b style="font-size: x-large;">Assert your rights to equal treatment!</b></span></div><p></p></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-87172361640813005442021-12-04T17:05:00.004+00:002021-12-04T17:12:38.245+00:00Organise to win the NEU's 8% pay demand<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>At long last, concrete steps are being taken by the National
Education Union to build towards the national strike action that will be
necessary to win a pay rise</b> that reverses the continuing decline in teachers’
real salaries. But the delay in launching a clear campaign means that urgent
steps now need to be taken at every level of the Union if we are going to ballot
successfully for union-wide industrial action.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3ontXfN" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAYDs0LUK0LKeRQqcFEL4x1xuLGVzS20eBLBsENfuUt9WwWeTj79mN5JgIefY4Xi63QMKSVkjFijjPAba5A9jkQIVHXbf-uYN6oXtBzI8dEzvW5ZkiVZByvP8rfPFUnld303pbO_6g0a1B/w640-h360/NEC+powerpoint+on+pay+campaign_Dec+2021+%2528SheilaC%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3ontXfN" target="_blank">Download a PowerPoint (this version by NEU NEC member Sheila Caffrey)</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Organise now so that we can win a national strike ballot</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Ever since July, when the Government confirmed they would be
imposing a 0% pay freeze on teachers’ pay in England for 2020/21 in England in
July, the five Socialist Party members on the NEU’s National Executive,
alongside others, have been pushing for the Union to launch a clear campaign to
prepare for a national ballot. (</span><span style="font-family: arial;">See: <a href="https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1150/33107/06-10-2021/neu-national-executive-agrees-campaign-on-pay">https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/1150/33107/06-10-2021/neu-national-executive-agrees-campaign-on-pay</a><span style="font-size: large;">).</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">It was a demand also taken up in my campaign for election as
NEU Deputy General Secretary. In my election address, I spelt out that “we
should already have responded with a plan of action” and warned that
“hesitation only invites further attacks”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Faced with rising prices, pressure has also been building
from below. When teachers see their pay frozen, at the same time as even
official inflation rates are rising to 5%, they expect their Union to be giving
a lead! Of course, the cost of many essentials is rising even faster – like
petrol and gas bills. Next April’s hike in National Insurance contributions
will further eat into incomes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Kevin Courtney sets out the NEU's 8% pay demand</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">NEU members will therefore be pleased to see <a href="https://twitter.com/cyclingkev/status/1466029721968328710">Kevin Courtney, Joint NEU GS, taking to social media</a> to call for a fully-funded 8% pay rise for
teachers, both in 2022 and 2023. Not only would such a pay award start to reverse
the years of real-terms decline in teacher incomes, it would also make sure
that the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) had met its own recommendation of
an initial starting salary of £30,000 for newly qualified teachers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">This follows the meeting of the NEU National Executive last
month where, for the first time, there was a serious discussion about how to urgently
mobilise across the whole Union. Executive members are now being urged to brief
branches about the campaign, and to build for reps’ briefings in the New Year. By
then, the Government will also have issued its remit to the STRB for the 2022
pay award, so members will know concretely the size of the threat we face for
next year’s pay too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">While these moves are welcome, a real sense of urgency is
now required to make up for lost time. As things stand, the latest campaign
email issued to members still fails to mention a national pay campaign at all!
That has to urgently change. Winning on pay must become a priority focus for
all, staff, local officers and activists alike. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">No section of the Union can be allowed to drag their feet
over the issue. Nor must the members’ survey planned for mid-January be used as
an excuse to back away from action. It’s inevitable that, with such a short
run-in to the survey, turnout will not yet be at the levels needed to beat the
legal thresholds in a formal strike ballot. Instead, Socialist Party members on
the NEU NEC are urging that the survey is seen as part of an escalating
campaign and used as an opportunity to identify both areas of strength and those
where we need to build more engagement. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>A timetable for action</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A good turnout in a January survey could then be built
further in a full indicative ballot later next term. NEU Annual Conference over
Easter could then be used to launch a formal strike ballot with maximum press publicity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such a timetable would allow mass NEU strike
action to take place to put maximum pressure on Government before the STRB
issue their pay recommendations in July. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Such a bold campaign could not only help to win the NEU’s
pay demands but also start to reverse the “race-to-the bottom” for all workers.
That will also need to include winning for support and supply staff members of
the NEU who have seen their already low incomes falling further.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">It can also start to rebuild the confidence and organisation
of NEU members as a whole, spurring on our fight on all the other issues we
face, like workload, testing, safety and academisation.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-31655528675544965892021-11-02T09:14:00.007+00:002021-11-08T13:39:05.194+00:00Thank you for your support in the DGS election<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Here's a video that I released just after the result of the NEU Deputy General Secretary election was announced:</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/h3wYVz_w5kY" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMMRlIAnSNyTO6oGq8PMbj5wz2pqHWu3BNItG2bZURq8IVF_XYoSl4rInxWjgugZop2dYpzoTDRsqRmQ4rDKcLe1FzyT2G3M4RY5DPp4hrW5MZxtt2QhHwi12UPvQSHPj3jzycmY-dKAE6/w640-h360/Get+in+touch+2.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/h3wYVz_w5kY"><span style="font-size: large;">https://youtu.be/h3wYVz_w5kY</span></a><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h3wYVz_w5kY" width="320" youtube-src-id="h3wYVz_w5kY"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The analysis below, written by myself and other colleagues, was <a href="https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/33260/03-11-2021/strategy-needed-to-bring-members-together-to-take-national-action" target="_blank">published in 'The Socialist' on 3rd November 2021</a>. Please get in contact if you would like to discuss further:</span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i><div>"For the first time, members of the National Education Union (NEU) have had the opportunity to vote for a deputy general secretary. In the ballot, which concluded on 29 October, the candidate of the majority 'NEU Left' leadership bloc on the union's national executive, Gawain Little, was defeated.</div><div><br /></div><div>Socialist Party member Martin Powell-Davies, standing on a fighting programme, won a quarter of the first preference votes. (The NEU uses a transferable voting system, which means voters put candidates in order of preference). The election was won by Niamh Sweeney, former president of the ATL (Association of Teachers and Lecturers) section of the NEU.</div><div><br /></div><div>Teachers and support staff have been on the frontline of the fight against Covid for 18 months, and continue to be so. In a cruel attack by the Tories, teachers in England have been hit with a pay freeze this year, while support staff and teachers in Wales got a miserly 1.75%.</div><div><br /></div><div>At the start of 2021, a national lead on the coordinated use of 'Section 44' workplace safety legislation defeated the Tories and forced them into a U-turn over Covid safety. The NEU reported that 400,000 people participated in an online briefing and tens of thousands joined the union.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yet fewer than 28,000 NEU members out of an overall electorate of 422,585 voted in this election, a turnout of only 6.6%.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is the result of a leadership that was pushed by pressure from the members to act at the start of the year, but has failed to show the same boldness over the ongoing threats to pay and workload.</div><div><br /></div><div>As the nomination meetings during the deputy general secretary election themselves showed, many district meetings are attended by only a dozen or so members. What it revealed is that the union has to build from below through campaigns that engage and involve union reps and members.</div><div><br /></div><div>Due to the NEU Left's influence among many district leaderships, Gawain Little won a clear majority of nominations, but the vote shows that in reality that bloc has very shallow roots among the wider membership.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, there can be broad unity around general ambitions for a better-funded, child-centred education system, but what the 'NEU Left' leadership group lacks is a clear strategy for achieving those goals. As the response to the latest attacks on pay has shown, they demonstrate a deep lack of confidence in the NEU ever managing to overcome the ballot thresholds needed to achieve national action.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, the union increasingly resorts to campaigns that ask members to do little more than send emails and sign petitions, in essence making hopeful appeals to politicians to 'do the right thing' for education. It is an approach that reveals an underestimation of the steely determination of the Tories and their backers to cut the costs of public services and atomise and undermine trade unions, not least in education.</div><div><br /></div><div>Niamh Sweeney comes from the previous ATL legacy union which joined with the National Union of Teachers in 2017. While she portrayed herself as an 'independent' candidate without the backing of 'factions', she is a Labour councillor and has been congratulated by the likes of Blairite/Starmerite MP Wes Streeting - who has stood aside while NEU members strike at Oaks Park school in his Redbridge constituency.</div><div><br /></div><div>Niamh highlighted some of the key issues for members, such as excessive workload. She will also have gained support for being a woman in a union where women are a big majority of the membership. However, adopting the timid approach previously adopted by the ATL will fail to find answers to those issues.</div><div><br /></div><div>Joining the NUT and the ATL together into a new NEU union potentially increased union strength, bringing together a larger membership embracing both teaching and support staff. However, it also risked the conservative approach of the ATL, one that had failed to grow its membership, having more influence, particularly within the NEU's union bureaucracy. That influence has indeed grown and may now seek to assert itself further.</div><div><br /></div><div>A rightward drift to a 'service-led union', rather than being a lay-led fighting union based on workplace strength and collective action, would be disastrous for NEU members.</div><div><br /></div><div>Martin Powell-Davies won a quarter of the first preference vote, standing as a socialist candidate with a proven record, taking only a teacher's salary, and offering a clear strategy to win on pay, workload and funding based on collective action.</div><div><br /></div><div>Martin set out a strategy emphasising building workplace strength, but also on bringing members together to take national action, rather than leaving them to struggle in isolation. The union needs to campaign and organise to win a new national contract that can improve pay, workload and conditions for all NEU members. Immediately, it needs to urgently organise to build action against the clear threat to impose yet another real-terms pay cut on school staff.</div><div><br /></div><div>The NEU's latest 'Value Education, Value Educators' campaign is, rightly, also calling for districts to turn towards the workplace and to make sure the union is seen as relevant to the wider membership. But the way that the campaign is being sold as a "five-year orientation" demonstrates an ongoing lack of confidence and a lack of urgency in building collective action.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is not enough to put all the responsibility onto hard-pressed workplace reps and union groups to try and organise small victories in their own workplaces. Yes, individual victories are needed, but real gains, and a real defence against the further attacks to come, require a clear and confident lead from the top of the union.</div><div><br /></div><div>Martin Powell-Davies would have helped to provide such a lead. But, without such a clear lead from the top, the importance of building from below is now even greater.</div><div><br /></div><div>Those who came together around the Martin4DGS campaign should continue to work together to offer a fighting alternative way forward"</div></i></span></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-20030023374442957612021-09-10T00:09:00.008+01:002021-09-18T18:50:12.649+01:00Why Martin for DGS?<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>I am standing to be NEU Deputy General Secretary</b> because our Union needs clear and determined leadership if we are going to withstand the serious challenges ahead of us. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>More than any other DGS candidate, I believe that I have the skills, experience, and campaigning record that can make us a stronger team</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><a href="https://youtu.be/BF9Tw8_lEYs" target="_blank">Here's a video</a> that gives just a flavour of the campaigns I have been involved in over many years:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/BF9Tw8_lEYs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="1204" height="98" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxinGdelng_e5lsdZcPJJFCIohuPWOFicBHrMRPR6MDX-Uf7G8wgHogsR0DG7wsuigWQ7uMWXx99PKibZcTtX8S0f8FMcSjC5SnA-gVmX18q7EyvFzeXknqximnr-S-RPigsuvUqQrEO_u/s320/History+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BF9Tw8_lEYs" width="320" youtube-src-id="BF9Tw8_lEYs"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If you'd like to listen to a longer interview, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-107061990/martin-powell-davies-interview-neu-deputy-general-secretary-candidate?" target="_blank">here's one I gave for a recent podcast for 'Lay Led Unions'</a>:</span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-107061990/martin-powell-davies-interview-neu-deputy-general-secretary-candidate?" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="335" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgiDO6ViiWIUkxS4B2as4wNt92VAcnTJefBtlYt1LwERTaSEsxoa3OtA3zrIoJw7nvqu05ZisbHCl8wmDv5WPeahjoRHVn6Kl2OGPsAssukPWIyNWoOSu5x_kSiuSgpOrPYt7qFKSQRKKB/" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">***</div></span><div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>In order to 'declutter' my <a href="https://martin4dgs.co.uk/" target="_blank">DGS campaign website</a>, some of its extensive content needed to be removed but, to show that I have remained consistent, I've pasted below the text that I posted when we first launched the site in January. I think it still holds true now, as we prepare for the members' ballot in October that will decide who is the first ever elected DGS of the NEU:</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b> Years of funding cuts, pressure from Ofsted/Estyn and ‘exam factory’ conditions have already taken their toll.</b> Now teachers and support staff face further attacks from a Government hoping to make us pay for their failures.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As DGS, I will work to build a Union that has the confidence, strength and organisation to defend the pay, jobs, safety and working conditions of education staff and, in doing so, defends education as whole.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Use union strength to defend staff and community safety.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Throughout the pandemic, I have consistently provided analysis explaining why we need to use our collective strength to defend safety.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The successful use of Section 44 in January showed what could be done when a clear national lead is given, giving confidence to members to act together. I will be a DGS that calls and organises for that collective approach to be followed in future too.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Where do the main differences lie in this election? </span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Every candidate will propose changes that could improve our conditions, and pupils’ learning conditions. But the key question is, how can they be won?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The NEU has not been slow to make demands. Our problem has been that they have too often been ignored by employers and Ministers:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our ‘5 tests’ for Covid Safety were not met - putting our health and safety at risk.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For years, we’ve complained about unreasonable workload - but it keeps getting worse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">•<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now we face a ‘pay freeze’ - are our demands for improved salaries going to be ignored too?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We need a clear national strategy. My ten campaign points set out what we need to organise and win.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A genuinely ‘lay-led’ democratic union.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Many are concerned that the Union is becoming too ‘top-down’ in its decision-making. I’ll be a DGS that says we must be “a lay-led Union” in practice, not just on paper.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I will strengthen our efforts to have trained, confident reps in every workplace, but I also know that reps need well-supported Districts to back them up. We need to better defend NEU Reps and Local Officers and their rights to facility time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I will be a DGS that works to bring our union together in our workplace groups, Districts and Branches – alongside NEU staff – with a belief that we can, and must, succeed in winning our demands.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A Deputy General Secretary you can trust to turn words into action</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As a member of the NUT National Executive from 2010-15 and then as a successful NEU London Regional Secretary from 2016-19, I have worked within the Union at its highest levels.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I also have long experience of working at a local and workplace level too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As Lewisham NUT Secretary for over 20 years, I doubled local membership and supported hundreds of colleagues. I have organised many successful campaigns, opposing cuts and academisation, defending pay, jobs and workload, challenging racism.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I am still a teacher and local NEU officer today, now in the North-West, experiencing the pressures on members at first hand. I am regularly invited to put our case across to the press and media. </span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The clear, determined leadership we need.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In short, my record shows that I can be a DGS that you can rely on to provide clear leadership.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I will listen and consult, keeping up a dialogue with Reps and Local Officers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I will be a DGS that proudly builds our Union, that works as a full part of the NEU leadership team – as I did as Regional Secretary – but I will also be a DGS of independent mind, ready to question decisions and speak out when necessary.</span></p><div class="elementor-column elementor-col-33 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-5d5f9cd" data-element_type="column" data-id="5d5f9cd" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; display: flex; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 19.2px; min-height: 1px; position: relative; width: 379.983px;"><div class="elementor-column-wrap elementor-element-populated" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; padding: 15px; position: relative; width: 379.983px;"><div class="elementor-widget-wrap" style="align-content: flex-start; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; position: relative; width: 349.983px;">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In July, the NEU issued a Covid-19 update, assuring members
and leaders that new advice would be published before the start of the new
term. Reps were also advised to remind their leadership that risk assessments
will need to be revised in time for the new year. But, with some schools and
colleges already open after the summer, as yet </span><span style="font-family: arial;">no new advice
has been issued. Instead, the latest NEU press releases lack the
clarity and firmness that its reps and members need.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Today's National Union’s <a href="https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/back-school">“Back to School” press
release</a> rightly states that the Government’s announcement of £25 million to
procure CO2 monitors for schools is an admission that risks remain, but that
they “<i>will not arrive soon enough, and only diagnose problems not solve them</i>”.
But, if that’s the case, then NEU reps need clear advice on actions their
schools should be taking right now.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Scotland already shows that infection rates will rise
once schools reopen<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">“<i>Staff, school students, and their families
understandably want the new academic year to be a return to ‘normality’ without
the stress and disruption of the last eighteen months. But the transmissibility
of the Delta variant, and the failure of Government to invest, means that sadly
won’t be the case</i>. <i>Just as in September 2020, we will be returning to
the same poorly ventilated, closely packed classrooms operating throughout the
day, prime conditions for spreading an airborne virus</i>”. (</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">‘<a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2021/08/why-union-groups-must-insist-that.html" target="_blank">Why union groups must insist that schools reduce Covid risk</a>’, </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">20/8/21) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Since I posted that warning last week, news from Scotland has
confirmed how the reopening of schools after the summer break is inevitably going
to drive up infection rates again. In July, Independent SAGE had linked a <a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2021/07/schools-and-covid-government-needs-to.html">decline
in Scottish infection rates</a> to the earlier start to their school holidays.
But now, young people are mixing in schools again, 'fuelling' record case numbers
according to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58328945">BBC
Scotland</a>. Tellingly, around a third of the new cases have been in the
under-19s age group.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Does this matter when so many adults are vaccinated?
Absolutely it does. Yes, vaccinations have helped ensure that hospitalisation
and death rates are much lower than they would have been, but protection is not
guaranteed. A proportion of our diverse population will still suffer serious
illness, and more again from long Covid, especially those who have existing
conditions that leave them at greater risk. Even a small percentage of a large
population of vaccinated adults - or unvaccinated children – still equates to
significant numbers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In the absence of National NEU advice (*see update below), here’s some
suggested advice for risk assessments<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Just as previously in the
pandemic, schools have a responsibility to assess the ongoing risks from
Covid-19, and then to take steps to mitigate them. <a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2021/07/schools-and-covid-government-needs-to.html">In my earlier post</a>, I outlined three key areas to consider for the new term:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(1) - Ventilation and Face
Coverings<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(2) - Isolation, Outbreaks and
Contact Tracing<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">(3) - Staff and families at greatest risk<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I have
now compiled more detail on the above as suggestions for NEU Officers and Reps
to raise urgently with their schools and employers.</span> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The advice - posted below - can be <a href="https://bit.ly/3mAuj2f" target="_blank">downloaded as a double-sided A4 briefing here</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3mAuj2f" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="885" data-original-width="1272" height="446" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3u30gayU_5cd4LoHE0Ua4lyqDUjbuc2piSUsx1FSS0Sqv9xUIyfwS0-4w84FsM-l_-luWpSBj4S-0KetPGatC8Vf6iDk6TCCc7z5Zmx_tDy90BkX9EIiewLqvJWYh5lUSyf99bqTA2x38/w640-h446/Covid+RA+advice+snip.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 125%;">Together
with the workplace representatives of recognised trade unions, schools and
colleges must act to reduce the ongoing risks from Covid-19:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">(1) - Ventilation
and Face Coverings<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Good
ventilation is now widely accepted as being key to preventing the spread of
Covid” (Paul Whiteman, General Secretary of the NAHT, joint union press
release, 17 August 2021)<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">The DfE have
belatedly announced that they will be procuring £25million of CO<sub>2</sub>
monitors over the next term but, for now, few schools and colleges will have
them in place. Even then, monitoring is only the start. Action then needs to be
taken where poor ventilation is identified:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Conduct
an immediate audit of all classrooms and workspaces to assess the adequacy of ventilation
and to set out the steps that can be taken to improve air flow in each case
based on the </span><a href="https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/equipment-and-machinery/air-conditioning-and-ventilation/index.htm"><span style="line-height: 125%;">HSE advice on ventilation & air
conditioning during the Covid-19 pandemic</span></a><span style="line-height: 125%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">To
assist this urgent risk assessment, rather than waiting solely for DfE
promises, an initial supply of portable CO2 monitors should be purchased
immediately by LAs/MATs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">As
was mandated for the start of term in Scotland, face coverings must similarly be
worn by staff and students in secondary classrooms. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Staff
working in circumstances where there are particular risks, such as from
children known to spit or bite, where children require intimate care or where
staff may need to administer first aid, must be provided with appropriate PPE,
including correctly graded face masks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">5.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Across
all sectors, an assessment of other transmission risks, such as in corridors
and communal areas, staffrooms, and at lunch and break times, should also be
made, and steps taken to mitigate risks. Staff meetings should continue to be
held online at present.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">(2) - Isolation,
Outbreaks and Contact Tracing<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">“[DfE
guidance] appears to suggest that everyday contact in education settings … is not going to be deemed close contact. This
increases the risk that infections will go undetected, subsequently leading to
more disruption and illness with the virus spreading more widely across
schools”. (Letter from UNISON to Gavin Williamson, 18 August 2021)<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">If settings and
employers only put in place the steps set out in the DfE’s latest operational
guidance and contingency framework, Covid transmission will inevitably occur,
leading to more disruption to education and infections amongst staff, students
and our wider communities. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">The
PHE guidance on actions to be taken by a ‘close contact’ should also be applied
to unvaccinated young people who are below the age of 18 years 6 months in
educational settings. They should NOT “continue to attend school as normal” as
the DfE guidance advises but should “stay at home and self-isolate” as with
other unvaccinated persons.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Schools/Colleges
should NOT rely only on a positive case or their parent to specifically
identify close contacts as suggested in the DfE guidance. Instead, they should continue
to identify close contacts on the following basis:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 17.85pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 125%;">●</span><span style="line-height: 125%;"> anyone who lives in the same household as
another person who has COVID-19 symptoms or has tested positive for COVID-19<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 17.85pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 17.85pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 125%;">●</span><span style="line-height: 125%;"> anyone who has had any of the following
types of contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 54pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 125%;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">face-to-face
contact including being coughed on or having a face-to-face conversation within
one metre<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 54pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 125%;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">been
within one metre for one minute or longer without face-to-face contact<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 54.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 54pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; line-height: 125%;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">been
within 2 metres of someone for more than 15 minutes (either as a one-off
contact, or added up together over one day)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 125%;">●</span><span style="line-height: 125%;"> A
person may also be a close contact if they have travelled in the same vehicle
as a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">3. Schools/Colleges
SHOULD make plans to take “extra action if the number of positive cases
substantially increases” as the DfE guidance suggests but SHOULD NOT wait for
the DfE’s suggested thresholds – such as 10% of pupils and staff in a class –
to do so. Those plans should include remote learning with funding to cover
additional staffing/supply costs in order to manage the resulting workload.
These are costs we must also all demand the DfE meets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">(3) - Staff
and families at greatest risk<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="line-height: 125%;">“School
staff, some of whom will not be double vaccinated, or are in a vulnerable
group, are also in some cases still at risk of serious illness”.</span></i><span style="line-height: 125%;"> (Joint Union letter to Gavin
Williamson, 17 August 2021)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">The absence
of mitigations and the DfE’s reckless guidance will be causing real concern to
staff and students who are at greater risk to serious illness, as well as to
those who live with family members who face those risks too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Every
member of staff who believes they, or a person they live with, are at a higher
risk of illness from Covid-19 should be provided with an individual risk
assessment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Individual
risk assessments should list the protective measures that will be put in place
to address those risks. These should include being able to work from home and
funds should be set aside to cover for additional staffing/supply costs
required to meet those needs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 17.85pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -17.85pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="line-height: 125%;">Schools/Colleges
and employers should advocate the benefits to 16-17 year olds, as well as to
adults, of getting vaccinated and drive for the widest uptake of vaccinations
as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -18pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 125%;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--></span><span style="line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: large;">All
children aged 12 to 15 years eligible for a vaccine – either those with a condition
that means they’re at high risk or who live with someone who is more likely to
get infections should be included in this drive too.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>*Update: National NEU advice</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">After this post was published, offical joint union advice was issued on the NEU website - you can read it <a href="https://neu.org.uk/media/17046/view" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I remain concerned that the advice lacks the firmness and clarity needed. For example, rather than clearly stating that unions are calling for face coverings to still be worn by staff and students in secondary classrooms, it only states that "<i>secondary settings should ... </i></span><i><span style="font-family: arial;">urgently </span><span style="font-family: arial;">consider the case for continuing to </span></i><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>require their wearing</i>". It also fails to recommend that 'close contacts' isolate, as I have done above.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The joint union advice also links to some useful detailed guidance on <a href="https://neu.org.uk/advice/coronavirus-ventilation-and-temperature" target="_blank">ventilation</a> and on <a href="https://neu.org.uk/advice/high-risk-groups" target="_blank">individual risk assessments for those at higher risk</a>.</span></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-8790971986688741072021-08-20T12:49:00.007+01:002021-08-26T18:31:32.911+01:00Why union groups must insist that schools reduce Covid risk<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Please also read further updated advice from 26 August on this blog <a href="https://www.mpdnut.com/2021/08/neu-officers-and-reps-need-firm-advice.html" target="_blank">here</a>:</span> </b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">We all want ‘normality’ but Covid risks are still far from ‘normal’</b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>“We are heading into a new school year with infection rates 25 times higher, and hospitalisation rates 10 times higher, than this point last year and with most mitigations removed” (Letter from UNISON to Gavin Williamson, 18 August 2021)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Staff, school students, and their families understandably want the new academic year to be a return to ‘normality’ without the stress and disruption of the last eighteen months. But the transmissibility of the Delta variant, and the failure of Government to invest, means that sadly won’t be the case.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Just as in September 2020, we will be returning to the same poorly ventilated, closely packed classrooms operating throughout the day, prime conditions for spreading an airborne virus. Few young people have been vaccinated. Without mitigations in place, an acceleration of transmission in schools, and then back into school communities, is inevitable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Relying on vaccinations alone is not a sufficient strategy</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>“Staff who are fully vaccinated are still at risk of catching the virus and potentially developing Long Covid, which is already afflicting tens of thousands of school staff” (Joint Union letter to Gavin Williamson, 17 August 2021)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Yes, vaccinations are certainly making a difference. They have helped make sure that hospitalisation and death rates are much lower than they would have been given our ongoing high infection rates. But protection is not guaranteed. A proportion of our diverse population will still suffer serious illness, especially those who have existing conditions that leave them at greater risk. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Death and hospitalisation numbers have been rising since June. Even a small percentage of a large population of vaccinated adults - or unvaccinated children – still equates to significant numbers. These are risks that schools have a responsibility to assess – and then to seek to mitigate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Insist on reducing risk (1) - Ventilation and Face Coverings</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>“Good ventilation is now widely accepted as being key to preventing the spread of Covid” (Paul Whiteman, General Secretary of the NAHT, joint union press release, 17 August 2021)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Education unions have called on the DfE to urgently invest in ventilation measures in our schools, just like education authorities in countries like Germany and the USA have already done. The DfE have since belatedly announced that they will be procuring £25million of CO2 monitors over the next term but, for now, few schools and colleges will have them in place. Even then, monitoring is only the start. Action then needs to be taken where poor ventilation is identified. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Having correctly identified the risk, unions now need to insist schools act to protect against airborne transmission. If CO2 monitors and air filters are not in place, the simplest and most effective mitigation is the wearing of face coverings in classrooms. As US ventilation expert Professor Shelly Miller advises “<i>universal masking without portable HEPA air cleaners will do more to slow the spread of Delta variant than portable HEPA air cleaners without universal masking</i>”.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Insist on reducing risk (2) - Isolation, Outbreaks and Contact Tracing</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>“[DfE guidance] appears to suggest that everyday contact in education settings – even when sitting alongside a positive case – is not going to be deemed close contact. This increases the risk that infections will go undetected, subsequently leading to more disruption and illness with the virus spreading more widely across schools”. (Letter from UNISON to Gavin Williamson, 18 August 2021)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Everyone wants disruption to education to stop. But declaring that close contacts under 18½ don’t have to self-isolate won’t stop disruption. Nor will failing to carry out contact tracing in schools, and nor will waiting until 5 individuals in a class test positive for COVID-19 before taking any action. Yet this is exactly what the latest DfE guidance advises, without providing any scientific justification.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As Unison’s letter to Gavin Williamson correctly warns, following DfE guidance simply means that infections will go undetected and transmission will spread, leading to more disruption and illness. But again, having correctly identified the risk, unions now need to insist schools have in place safe systems for isolation, contact tracing and, when necessary, staffing to support online learning.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Insist on reducing risk (3) - Staff and families at greatest risk</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>“School staff, some of whom will not be double vaccinated, or are in a vulnerable group, are also in some cases still at risk of serious illness”. (Joint Union letter to Gavin Williamson, 17 August 2021)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The absence of mitigations and the DfE’s reckless ‘schools COVID-19 operational guidance’ will be causing real concern to staff and students who are at greater risk to serious illness, as well as to those who live with family members who face those risks too. The guidance does at least state that “<i>no pupil should be denied education on the grounds of whether they are, or are not, wearing a face covering</i>” and certainly no school management should prevent the voluntary wearing of masks.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Unions have made clear throughout the pandemic that high risk or vulnerable staff have a right to an individual risk assessment and protective measures being put in place to address those risks, including being able to work from home. But individual union members can best be backed by the strength of the collective union group insisting on an overall risk assessment that protects both individuals at greater risk as well as the health, safety and welfare of staff and students as a whole.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Download this advice as an A4 double-sided document <a href="https://bit.ly/3j3wRUp" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUqHhDseBjyGmchAbCwnwpFID1VfT3sAVoV2ngxmvQaJchyphenhyphen68_Kj1v8lUiqFjPrWYoAdBmCOridxpWc2H4wS0qJ0u6X_PZFlitRZS_3nemZHd_Cry7KKV59b48PTjQEx5n5Sj2BRI507Dl/s2048/Pledge+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1230" data-original-width="2048" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUqHhDseBjyGmchAbCwnwpFID1VfT3sAVoV2ngxmvQaJchyphenhyphen68_Kj1v8lUiqFjPrWYoAdBmCOridxpWc2H4wS0qJ0u6X_PZFlitRZS_3nemZHd_Cry7KKV59b48PTjQEx5n5Sj2BRI507Dl/w640-h384/Pledge+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><br /></p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-37495939383286462932021-08-17T11:00:00.007+01:002021-08-27T11:45:38.732+01:00Oppose the Pay Freeze - but with action, not just words<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>After all that educators have done throughout the pandemic, the ‘reward’ that we have received from this Government has been a pay freeze for teachers and a miserly 1.75% for support staff. When inflation is heading towards 4%, these are real-terms pay cuts.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If we fail to respond to this insult with action, we will only be inviting more attacks - like a lengthening of the school day and yet further cuts being made to school and college funding.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Letters and petitions are not enough. We need to learn the lessons of how we forced a U-turn over Covid safety - by using the collective strength of the whole union acting together.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That's why I say:</span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3g6Yt9q" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="664" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmVyWJbwpm7XqmPs7qmTcu5lS8InJW3YkGtvL5eWHFPkGXpxPHt-hf0nUCK6EOcJjA9aEgnkNsv97HYcPadXm3NOJs9Qj8Zajgqj7Q5gSlDELLwnai6bEd8MRkmsO0gNGzPrIqOSc5cUUH/w294-h400/Pay+leaflet+snip.jpg" width="294" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://bit.ly/3g6Yt9q" target="_blank">Download and share as a leaflet</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> BRING UNIONS TOGETHER in a joint campaign to defend pay and public services</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> ORGANISE at every level of the Union so we are ready to win A NATIONAL BALLOT </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> SUBMIT A CLAIM FOR A NEW NATIONAL CONTRACT for all staff - with binding pay scales, no performance pay, legal limits on overall working hours and class sizes</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">●<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> FULLY FUND SCHOOLS to meet needs</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Accepting these pay cuts will only invite further attacks</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The Government left it to the very end of last term to confirm that their ‘thank-you’ for all of the exhausting work we carried out throughout the pandemic would be to impose a 0% pay freeze on teacher salaries. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Support staff had already been offered just 1.75% and teachers in Wales 1.75% too. Even NHS staff have only been awarded 3%. With the Bank of England predicting inflation at 4% by the end of the year, these are all actually pay cuts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">But this pay injustice should come as no surprise. The pay freeze was first announced last November. Ministers waited to see what response they would get from the NEU and other unions. They obviously concluded that they could get away with it. We need to prove them wrong!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We are facing a callous, conniving Government that, having looked after their friends during the pandemic, now wants school and college staff, and the communities we support, to foot the bill through cuts to our pay and conditions - and to the learning conditions for our students.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If they succeed with imposing pay cuts, Ministers will only gain in confidence to deal us another blow. They are already threatening to extend the school day, worsening our contracts and workload yet further.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Letters and petitions alone will have no real effect. Instead, we need to learn the lessons from last January when, faced with NEU members invoking their Section 44 Health and Safety rights union-wide, Boris Johnson was forced into a U-turn over his unsafe school opening plans.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That’s why I believe we now need to act with confidence and determination and prepare for national action.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Organise to win a national ballot</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The NEU rightly stresses the importance of building workplace strength. Important victories have been won by individual school and college groups taking strike action over the last year. But when we face a national attack, as we do over pay, then winning at a workplace level is not enough. We need to organise together nationally.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Of course, the Government has deliberately put a significant hurdle in the way of unions by imposing a 50% postal ballot turnout threshold for industrial action to proceed. But, if the NEU is going to be able to defend educators and education, it has to overcome that barrier. The job of a union leadership is to work out a plan to make sure we can do so. I am standing as NEU Deputy General Secretary to provide such a lead.</span></p><p><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Martin’s strategy to win</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Immediately, we need to make clear to both Ministers and educators that we aren’t accepting this attack lying down. Meetings and rallies need to be organised to explain and to convince NEU members of the need to act. They should be backed up with campaign materials for colleagues - and for parents and the public too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Locally and nationally, we need to bring colleagues together from other unions, including in the NHS, to build a co-ordinated campaign of action, starting with setting a date for a national demo.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We need to organise meticulously at every level of the Union to put in place the steps needed to ensure we are ready to proceed with a successful ballot, learning from NEU groups and other unions who have successfully met the thresholds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">If we are going to build for national action, we should also widen our demands beyond just the pay award. We should submit a claim for a new National Contract for all staff that includes binding pay scales on all employers and an end to performance pay. But our working conditions are just as important - perhaps more so for many staff given levels of workload. Our claim should also include a call for legal limits on both class sizes and on overall working hours, not just on teachers’ ‘1265’ directed hours. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Finally, for schools to be able to both pay us properly and employ sufficient staff to meet pupil needs, our action needs to be part of a campaign to reverse cuts and win the funding that our schools and colleges need.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">#Martin4DGS - ZOOM MEETING</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Turn words into action - Build for a national ballot</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Sunday September 26th - 16.00</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Meeting ID: 890 2272 9469</span></p><div><br /></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-48096820216519071472021-08-09T13:08:00.002+01:002021-08-09T13:09:18.147+01:00IPCC issues "Code Red" for Humanity. We need global planning, not politicians' hot air<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://youtu.be/AT21zvddmUE" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="919" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfVFHosCPJazgmrH13kl3GO8FW7q4oJQPENo7680zAi9eGN8P0934JNIOzlORum0F9Sx5wmOP52EQxH2FDKzRxyw2j0BRsltG4p7fctG7cyNwrrAM6r1l0O04JrEhaBb3IIWrEhOeJUE4/s320/Radio+Dawn+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Today, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report confirming the disastrous damage that has already been done to the world's climate - and that the ongoing failure to seriously tackle global emissions means that the climate crisis is going to get worse.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Sadly, nothing in the Report should come as any surprise. But it is further evidence, if any is needed, that tackling climate change</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> needs more than politicians' hot air, it requires rapid action to cooperatively plan global resources. As a socialist, I believe that means taking those resources out of the hands of big business who, in their drive for short-term profit, will never be able to act globally in the long-term interests of humanity.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Climate change was one of the topics I was asked to discuss as a guest on Nottingham's local Radio Dawn last week - <a href="https://youtu.be/AT21zvddmUE">here's what I had to say</a>:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AT21zvddmUE" width="320" youtube-src-id="AT21zvddmUE"></iframe></div><span class="r-18u37iz" face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03); color: #0f1419; flex-direction: row; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5601510630767929201.post-1271148032169782662021-07-31T19:06:00.006+01:002021-08-05T08:25:26.768+01:00Schools and Covid: Government needs to act to reduce risk, not ignore it.<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The summer school holidays are providing a much needed break for staff and students alike from the stressful conditions of teaching and learning in the midst of a pandemic. The fact that school communities, not least unvaccinated young people, are no longer closely mixing in poorly ventilated classroom spaces, is also likely to be a significant factor in the drop in reported Covid cases over the last fortnight. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">But the current prevalence of the Covid virus, even without any new variants developing, remains a serious threat to health. While vaccination of much of the UK's older population has certainly helped reduce the risk of death, a proportion of a diverse population will inevitably still face hospitalisation, particularly those who have existing conditions that leave them at greater risk. Many more again will join the hundreds of thousands already reported in the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/latest" target="_blank">Government's own data</a> as suffering from the debilitating effects of "Long Covid" many months after their likely date of original infection.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">A Government that was serious about protecting communities, and to stop the disruption to lives and livelihoods caused when outbreaks occur, would be taking the opportunity offered by the school holidays to make sure measures were in place to reduce the airborne spread of the virus in schools at the start of the new academic year. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">For example, they could be <a href="https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2021/6/23/22547814/all-classrooms-to-have-2-air-purifiers-next-year-new-york-city-officials-pledge" target="_blank">following the example of New York</a>, where "<i>t</i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>o help curb the spread of COVID, all 56,000 New York City public school classrooms will be equipped with two air purifiers by September</i>" ... "<i>In addition, custodians have been given </i></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>monitors to measure carbon dioxide levels, an indicator of how much fresh air is circulating</i>". They could also extend the vaccination program to children over 12, for whom the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been authorised for use.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Instead of acting to reduce risk, the Conservative Government is removing what limited mitigations have been in place in schools. In May, they removed the requirement for face coverings in secondary classrooms. They have now said that there will no longer be any requirement to teach pupils in consistent 'bubbles', and that pupils will no longer be required to self-isolate if they are 'close contacts' of a positive COVID-19 case. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Of course, especially when the levels of infections and school outbreaks were as high as they were at the end of last term, isolation requirements have severely disrupted education. However, the steps taken by schools will also have helped contribute to the fall in infection rates now being seen:</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGCOnbLqh-tWT98EnWc1KCgw0tX3bUqq8YMSJ29HtAUe2YJpGpRj62Cjul03cNR5wsgLaTx2Rj0M3bIZ1t7-rI8cVu2r9DJoATHVSZL3qZ68TisJ1S9pJDFIm7rd1_IHnof8IWgi7mEJb7/s884/iSAGE300721+c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="884" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGCOnbLqh-tWT98EnWc1KCgw0tX3bUqq8YMSJ29HtAUe2YJpGpRj62Cjul03cNR5wsgLaTx2Rj0M3bIZ1t7-rI8cVu2r9DJoATHVSZL3qZ68TisJ1S9pJDFIm7rd1_IHnof8IWgi7mEJb7/w400-h294/iSAGE300721+c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Slide taken from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQJ9Abs6AuE" target="_blank">independent SAGE weekly update, 30.07.21</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Removing isolation requirements alongside other protective steps in schools won't prevent disruption to education when outbreaks inevitably occur. Instead, they risk making those outbreaks more likely, accelerating the spread of infection, and put at risk the falls in infection rates that will hopefully be sustained over the summer. These rash steps will also</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> endanger the health of </span><span style="font-family: arial;">students</span><span style="font-family: arial;">, staff and the wider school community, particularly those medically at the greatest risk.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Instead of demanding Ministers invest in ventilation measures in our schools, or exposing their failure to provide workers with full pay when they have to isolate, or the ongoing lack of properly</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> functioning community test-and-trace schemes, sadly Labour leader Keir Starmer seems more interested in criticising Ministers for not acting fast enough to remove measures that can help protect against Covid transmission.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Once again, the responsibility will fall on school unions to use our collective strength to defend health and safety. We will need to insist that risk assessments are in place that ensure a safe environment for staff and the students we teach. If those steps are not in place then, once again, unions must advise members accordingly not to work in an unsafe environment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>Why the risks are far from over - iSAGE 30.07.21</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As an addendum to my post, I am posting some of the key slides taken from the analysis from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQJ9Abs6AuE" target="_blank">this week's briefing </a></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQJ9Abs6AuE" target="_blank"> by Professor Christina Pagel on behalf of independent SAGE</a>:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">1) Yes, vaccination has made a massive difference:</span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb27FRWbxnIlo4GeOsRpYKuPnFQFyzX9sHczSyNnQIe_ibIqJ94PyzdTjLUmZDUtCQdhW-xrafxt0GDGmwnw0LyvQSDbExcOS75WlmXhVTu4HjcVB5rzBO9uzND-w6wM7O9mSTyOh9QdoS/s862/iSAGE300721+b.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="862" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb27FRWbxnIlo4GeOsRpYKuPnFQFyzX9sHczSyNnQIe_ibIqJ94PyzdTjLUmZDUtCQdhW-xrafxt0GDGmwnw0LyvQSDbExcOS75WlmXhVTu4HjcVB5rzBO9uzND-w6wM7O9mSTyOh9QdoS/w400-h299/iSAGE300721+b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">2) But we are still far from having a fully vaccinated population, especially when around 20% of the population are children:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnt0awBZ2ATEf5bdhxS0vkznp9ZgVHlc1F7iD6cyqmu7ulngHyBcUIuy965T3xxGP8WlGDSnPu4wPutr-xkakCI2WvebeJNV_tgQEahgzG9D6xjAA2zzqF0hn5UZ70itBXvNDc2b9TYx_y/s881/iSAGE300721+j.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="881" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnt0awBZ2ATEf5bdhxS0vkznp9ZgVHlc1F7iD6cyqmu7ulngHyBcUIuy965T3xxGP8WlGDSnPu4wPutr-xkakCI2WvebeJNV_tgQEahgzG9D6xjAA2zzqF0hn5UZ70itBXvNDc2b9TYx_y/w400-h286/iSAGE300721+j.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">3) Vaccination greatly reduces the risk of death and hospitalisation - but doesn't eliminate the risk entirely:</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLe0-N_Mxe7u-gOZJzR1Kb78Dn13UPqxSnRfvL2EPrlNcdtMeWdRhRcjrbQpT40ZG_38i553j9Sqx0J84BfjDwS3dnOU9HM47grIM2vOexFd1vr1hTPVKoecnGrjUYqHfocH-Wq4v3Mom_/s886/iSAGE300721+a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="886" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLe0-N_Mxe7u-gOZJzR1Kb78Dn13UPqxSnRfvL2EPrlNcdtMeWdRhRcjrbQpT40ZG_38i553j9Sqx0J84BfjDwS3dnOU9HM47grIM2vOexFd1vr1hTPVKoecnGrjUYqHfocH-Wq4v3Mom_/w400-h291/iSAGE300721+a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">4) Encouragingly, the reported numbers of cases is falling - with one cause of the more prolonged decline in Scotland likely to be their earlier start to the school holidays:</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAX5Q_8c99JYpCR_2GSxvkH1eh3oUy0kuz40_CjzUymEYkGB72Xi2JTom1_5agK79gUrDekWMemN-ca9u6SqmEodFwO5Jlm12l6XrIJSwBVz-4_O0tRCkWr6-1f9E4izW5bnExr4NknPG/s863/iSAGE300721+k.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="863" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTAX5Q_8c99JYpCR_2GSxvkH1eh3oUy0kuz40_CjzUymEYkGB72Xi2JTom1_5agK79gUrDekWMemN-ca9u6SqmEodFwO5Jlm12l6XrIJSwBVz-4_O0tRCkWr6-1f9E4izW5bnExr4NknPG/w400-h294/iSAGE300721+k.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">5) However, although this PCR based survey can show a lag behind reported infections, the latest ONS Infection Survey does not yet confirm any overall decline in England, with rates still rising amongst younger unvaccinated age groups in particular:</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7x9l6SaMCE_8pORSAlQz8cXq_1ahKUhgFaBlMEYSuegqWdkH3zNfCzOGftk-zWgLnHA02HW-_qPhwx7fGHmCVAe44uZQYxe4UGpdOohqdGFgB3ttGMuuoasIyW06iTlhypHIFEcY-24c/s830/iSAGE300721+i.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="830" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij7x9l6SaMCE_8pORSAlQz8cXq_1ahKUhgFaBlMEYSuegqWdkH3zNfCzOGftk-zWgLnHA02HW-_qPhwx7fGHmCVAe44uZQYxe4UGpdOohqdGFgB3ttGMuuoasIyW06iTlhypHIFEcY-24c/w400-h299/iSAGE300721+i.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">6) Another factor in increasing rates in June/July may have been mixing - particularly of young men - during the Euros:</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGF1yksFlyHBykOBrrpYYxxW8JkNFd-Mm5-Vk0kyttwdJDH3mseRGcC68fTypS0LXO_-4AdMPpj7kqk6kvo_bDYhXGhBZ5A1mDgiTbv47EO5wUyVnyZ6qsneb9O0gaxXXjJ9DttDfkKox/s844/iSAGE300721+e.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="844" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGF1yksFlyHBykOBrrpYYxxW8JkNFd-Mm5-Vk0kyttwdJDH3mseRGcC68fTypS0LXO_-4AdMPpj7kqk6kvo_bDYhXGhBZ5A1mDgiTbv47EO5wUyVnyZ6qsneb9O0gaxXXjJ9DttDfkKox/w400-h297/iSAGE300721+e.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">7) There is a danger that the further lifting of restrictions may cut across the gains made from schools being on holiday. However, surveys show that most people are cautious and appreciate that risks remain. It is Government failures that are to blame, not the public:</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSNaFvvfa8MnTxh7-SwCeCykJr_FlMc36jm2nJBNcrFjPhM5SvPQqgmYpyGq-4qyXVhUAPVORaQQoMCGAddr3GA2a7o3RkhruA57NopUwRdXs387oqn6mezb8I7qSJyicf40bW1X9GvfE/s851/iSAGE300721+f.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="851" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSNaFvvfa8MnTxh7-SwCeCykJr_FlMc36jm2nJBNcrFjPhM5SvPQqgmYpyGq-4qyXVhUAPVORaQQoMCGAddr3GA2a7o3RkhruA57NopUwRdXs387oqn6mezb8I7qSJyicf40bW1X9GvfE/w400-h299/iSAGE300721+f.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">UPDATE: <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was able to make many of these points - and more besides (!) - as a guest on this week's "Safe Education for All" broadcast on 'Socialist Telly'. Have a look <a href="https://youtu.be/P33iJH-zxKE" target="_blank">here</a>:</span></span><div><span style="color: #050505; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #050505; font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P33iJH-zxKE" width="320" youtube-src-id="P33iJH-zxKE"></iframe></div><br /><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00561427714319716345noreply@blogger.com0